


from one to ten

by nevermordor



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Dismemberment, Established Relationship, Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Light Masochism, M/M, Ope Ope no Mi | Op-Op Fruit, Polyamory, Pre-Wano Arc (One Piece), Rough Sex, Wano Arc (One Piece), Whole Cake Island Arc Spoilers, but completely consensual dismemberment, probably not going to end up totally canon compliant but i'll try my best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-06-13 19:17:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15371499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermordor/pseuds/nevermordor
Summary: “You wanna let me go,” Zoro says, still vibrating with adrenaline and nerves. Flirting with him was like this since the beginning: bruising and playfully combative. Law loves that about him though he’s never said it outright. Zoro smiles — three smiles now, that’s practically a winning streak — and Law presses him a little harder up against the door.“Do I?”“I might take your fucking arms off.”“I’ll take yours first,” Law says, assured.They’re close enough that he feels the ripple of anticipation that runs through Zoro, along his spine, all the way down through his legs.--After Luffy departs for Whole Cake Island, Zoro and Law find ways to cope.





	1. eight

**Author's Note:**

> i tried to tag anything that might be potentially triggering but if i missed anything or if you see something please feel free to let me know and i'll happily tag it. this is 100% consensual, but there's going to be a continuous theme of pain as it relates to love, at least to a degree, so i'd prefer that you stay safe rather than read anything upsetting. please take care of yourself first and foremost.
> 
> that said, hope you enjoy! thank you so much for reading. these three suck.

The first time it comes up, it’s little more than an idle threat.

They surface and the mercenary crew that’s been trailing them for the last two ports is ready and waiting. They’re amateurs. They fly Doflamingo’s colors openly and their eagerness makes for poor aim. A man like Doflamingo doesn’t rise to power without a wide network of friends and even wider pockets. Law’s enjoyed parts of watching his empire crumble to ruin: the supply lines of SMILE breaking down, the marine raids on the front page of the papers every time another illegal weapons cache is discovered. The nuisance of being trailed by incompetent and trigger-happy morons: decidedly less.

Law takes the stairs from the control room two at a time and stumbles out on deck as cannons ring out across the water. Franky’s already there, machinery clanking as his shoulders rotate and unleash a barrage of missiles. Usopp fires off rounds of his monstrous green plants and Miss Nico reaches across the gap between their ships to throttle any man she can get hold of. Law’s gaze sweeps across them approvingly and finds Zoro — waiting for him, of course — and when their eyes meet Zoro smiles, _finally_ smiles, for the first time in nearly a week and it almost makes being the whole being blown out of the water thing worthwhile.

They dispatch the remaining enemies quickly. Law summons a Room and cuts the captain’s head off, teleporting it into his waiting hands. The captain’s wheezing. Spittle flecks his chin and his eyes are bulging as he stares up at Law with furious terror. “You may want to surrender,” Law says.

“We’d rather die.”

“That can be arranged,” Law replies. The mercenary captain spits in his face, saliva landing wet and foul on his cheek. Law drops his head unceremoniously onto the deck.

“You’re fools,” the mercenary grits out. “All of you. Kaidou’s going to eat Straw Hat alive.”

There’s a violent jerk in the periphery of Law’s vision — Zoro. Law wills him to stay put. He plants his heel on the mercenary captain’s face and grinds down until there’s a grunt of pain and the man’s nose caves and breaks. “We’ll see about that,” Law says.

They scuttle the ship and leave the mercenary captain’s head dangling from the mast just beneath Doflamingo’s jolly roger. The Polar Tang slides back beneath the waves. He doesn’t prefer direct combat but the fight has shaken the restlessness and fatigue that’s been threatening to descend over his ship. Victory is always good for morale. His men are gleeful as he gives them their orders; the Straw Hats are as loud and laidback as ever when he confers with them. He uses the remaining spike of energy to set things back in order and only afterwards does he retreat to the engine room.

He finds Zoro huddled in one of the dark rows between humming equipment. It’s become his favorite hiding spot because, as Law’s discovered, he has an irritating habit of avoiding the medical bay. He’s tying off bandages around his wrist, attempting to stem a dark red stain seeping through the sleeve of his robe. “You’re making it worse,” Law says.

Zoro snorts but hides a smile. Two whole smiles within an hour of each other. There’s blood drying below his nose and seeping out from between his teeth where one of the mercenaries elbowed him in the face.

“I can take care of you. My cabin?”

Zoro arches an eyebrow. “Aye,” he says, amused, and follows.

He can hear his own crew being swept up in another of the Straw Hats’ raucous celebrations. Franky in particular is a bad influence on his crew’s discipline. Law makes a mental note to deal with that later, right before he pulls Zoro into his quarters, and then shuts the door and slams him up against it.

“Thought you were gonna take care of me.”

“Who says I’m not?” Law fires back. His arms bracket Zoro on either side, trapping him. Zoro looks down, taking in their positions; when he looks up again, his eye is very narrow and very dark.

“You wanna let me go,” Zoro says, still vibrating with adrenaline and nerves. Flirting with him was like this since the beginning: bruising and playfully combative. Law loves that about him, though he’s never said it outright. Zoro smiles—three smiles now, that’s practically a winning streak—and Law presses him a little harder up against the door.

“Do I?”

“I might take your fucking arms off.”

“I’ll take yours first,” Law says, assured.

They’re close enough that he feels the ripple of anticipation that runs through Zoro, along his spine, all the way down through his legs.

He’s always been good at reading people, if only because that makes it easier to take exactly what he wants from them. Recently though he’s found there can be a certain pleasure too in giving people what they want. Law can feel tension in the swell of Zoro’s bicep as he grips it, in the strain of his wrists as Law catches them. He realizes, his mouth hovering just over Zoro’s that he could cut him just like this. “Tell me what you want, Roronoa,” Law murmurs.

A soft growl. Zoro thrashes, wrenching one hand free from Law’s grasp and winding it into the front of his hoodie instead. “Stick your dick in me already, Traf,” he snaps.

It’s hard not to oblige such a sincere request.

The elbow to the face Zoro took earlier broke the skin of his forehead. The cut reopens as Law’s hips thrust forward, and blood drips in a narrow thread down Zoro’s nose and chin. Law licks it up, the taste of Zoro in his mouth like iron and smoke.  
  
  
  
  
Before Zoro and Luffy he arranged his life into neat and orderly piles: stacks of books, piles of clothes, stray belongings, treasures and trophies raided from enemy ships. He contained and compartmentalized memories, fears, opinions into tight and narrow corners.

The air’s drowsy and damp with their shared body heat. His spine presses into the spine of the book he hasn’t started reading yet because he’s gotten through less and less books ever since Zoro started sleeping in his bed. Together they’re tangled up in piles of previously clean laundry he never finished folding and putting away. Their shoes are scattered across the floor. His desk sags under half-filled notebooks and half-finished mugs of old, filmy coffee. It’s a chaos he’s grudgingly embraced, one that’s begun to feel a little like home — almost home, he amends, as his hand strays from Zoro’s hip and touches the empty space in the bed beside them.

“You could take me apart that fast?” Zoro mumbles. “Earlier,” he clarifies when Law looks at him. “You said you’d take my arms. You could take me apart that fast?”

“Yes.” Law’s thumb presses to Zoro’s hip bone and then drifts lower, caressing coarse pubic hair. He turns his options over carefully and then says, “I could show you how.”

Zoro yawns. “Sure,” he says, his eye already drifting closed.

“Perhaps later,” Law murmurs. He’s answered with a faint snore.  
  
  
  
  
There are reports of activity in the west, of pirates gathering at Whole Cake Island in preparation for Big Mom’s tea party and ostensibly Black Leg’s wedding. There’s no mention of the Straw Hats or reported sightings of Luffy. It’s the exact same news that’s been printed for the last three days now.

Law hasn’t slept in three days either.

“Anything?” Bepo asks. Law shakes his head and accepts a second mug of black coffee, ignores the plate of eggs that Bepo puts in front of him as well.

The mess hall slowly comes alive as the night watch is relieved and shuffles in for food. The Straw Hats are bickering, crowded around the table they’ve staked out for themselves. They’re always bickering. This morning it seems to center around Usopp and Zoro, something about booze mysteriously appearing in the communal pitcher of orange juice. Usopp is red and howling while the rest of them laugh. They make it look so easy, to not to be afraid.

Law hates them for it. Not a lot. Just a little.

He retrieves Kikoku and excuses himself. Bepo fusses but no one else pays much attention as he slips out of the mess and retreats to the control room.

It’s quiet in the dark. He sits and watches the screens, the lines of sonar like a flatline. The rush of the Polar Tang’s pipes and the steady whir of her machinery helps, if only a little, against the silence and stillness of the ocean beyond her. He waits for the blip to come, the indication of the Thousand Sunny’s return.

The hatch door creaks. The darkness shifts and then closes in again and there’s a soft groan as Zoro sinks into the seat next to him. “What are you even looking at?”

“Patterns.”

Zoro studies the screens too but only for a moment before his attention slides to Kikoku. He takes the sword and Law lets him. Zoro unsheathes it carefully and lays it across his lap. He’s brought his kit with him. He has thick, callused fingers: they should be clumsy, but their touch is deft as they stroke the fur around Kikoku’s hilt, as they run a sliver of _kashi_ paper along the blade. Zoro’s head dips, his earrings jingling softly. He caresses the fine, sharp edge of Kikoku with the pad of his thumb; Law feels his sword shiver and the steel is stained with a thin line of blood.

Zoro grins.

Law watches his face, pensive. Zoro never reads the papers, hardly listens to Law’s own reports when he recounts the news. They’ve barely discussed it but Zoro still must feel it, the way Law does like the curve of a blade against his throat: that it’s been two days, five days, a week since Luffy’s been gone. Law rolls the question around in his head, testing the weight of it. You reveal just as much about yourself in the things that you notice and remark upon. He would know. It’s not that he has to keep his guard up around Zoro. It’s just easier to do so. Where Luffy is loud and emotional and blunt, Zoro is briefly surfaced emotions and offhand remarks that Law probably reads too much into.

“Were you serious yesterday?” Zoro asks, interrupting his thoughts.

“I’m always serious,” Law deadpans.

“I meant about taking me apart.”

Law looks back at the screen but the sea around them is still dark and empty. “Of course,” he says.

“Can we do that?”

“What, now? Hardly one for romance, are you, Zoro-ya.”

“That’s what it’s supposed to be? Romantic?”

Zoro’s smirking at him. Law realizes he’s smirking too. “Tonight,” he suggests.

Zoro nods. “Tonight,” he agrees, satisfied, and returns to his work. Law leaves him to it. He pulls out the pocket book on Wano that Miss Nico lent him and reads in the half-light of the screens, brushing up on its language and customs. Beside him Zoro is a quiet, whistling exhale through his nose and the soft hush of the paper along Kikoku. It’s not much. It’s not Luffy. But there’s a solid comfort in it nevertheless.  
  
  
  
  
He brings one of the starched surgical sheets from the medical bay and is spreading it out across the floor of the cabin when it occurs to him that he’s treating this like a standard surgical procedure. Law pauses in the midst of smoothing a wrinkle from the center of the sheet and considers his hands, which so rarely act on impulse.

He’s fantasized about it before: Zoro on his operating table, tan skin against cold steel. He wants to know what it’d be like, to peel Zoro apart with a scalpel, to unstitch him an inch at a time. He’s seen the same kind of hunger in Zoro’s eyes before — suspects that Zoro would be all too familiar with that particular dark corner of Law’s mind, if Law ever chose to share it with him.

He takes the edges of the sheet and folds it up again into a neat pale square, finishing just ahead of the knock at his cabin door. “You’re late,” Law says when he answers it.

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Zoro grumbles. He’s dispensed with his usual robes for jeans and a dark, loose shirt that he’s only bothered to button up halfway. Law’s gaze follows along the exposed dip of skin. Clever.

“I’m still annoyed,” Law says.

“That all you are?” Zoro swaggers closer. His breath is slightly sour. His pupils are dilated and there’s a flush crawling up his neck.

“You’ve been drinking.”

“I been drinking.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Any man who values his limbs _would_ be.”

Law, however, has learned by now which side of his mouth ticks up, the exact way his eye creases at the corner. “Well, that’s definitely not you, Zoro-ya.” And there at last is the smile, slow and broad. Only yesterday Law noticed the slight dimple in his right cheek. He’s still learning Zoro, a piece of him at a time. Law’s hands rest on Zoro’s hips, his thumbs tucking under the loose hem of Zoro’s shirt and pressing to bare skin beneath. “You realize drinking before a major operation isn’t the best practice,” Law says.

“Anyone ever told you that you’re a nerd?”

“Not lately, anyway.”

There’s a snort from the vicinity of his shoulder. Law walks them backwards a step at a time into his cabin. “’Sides,” Zoro mumbles, “it’s not like you were planning on actually cutting me up.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

Zoro’s grin has a distinctly feral slant to it. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

He leaves Zoro to undress and turns to wash his hands in the basin, working the soap to a lather because he is nothing if not made up of preparation and carefully cultivated habits. In the mirror, Zoro kicks off his boots and shimmies out of his haramaki, placing it all beside the laundry basket Law never uses anymore and then tumbling onto the bed. His shirt rides up along his stomach, his trousers low on his hips. It’s a sprawl that looks lazy on the surface. Zoro’s eye darts to the door of Law’s room; to Law himself and then away again; toward the dark ocean outside the porthole window. Law pictures the layout of the Straw Hats’ quarters. “Shambles,” he says, summoning the bottle of rum he knows Zoro keeps stashed beneath the cot where he likes to nap. He tosses it over.

“I love that trick,” Zoro says.

“I do try.”

Zoro takes a hard sip, his throat working, and Law feels the distinct urge to _bite._ When he pulls off the bottle his lips are wet, his cheeks flushed. He looks at the label of the bottle appreciatively; looks at Law’s shoes.

No one in the Straw Hats thinks twice about physical intimacy. It isn’t as if Zoro hasn’t been sharing his bed since just after Dressrosa. Law still hesitates before sitting down next to him. “I want you to trust me,” he says, hoping it comes off more sincere than sarcastic. He’s not very good at it yet, having long considered affection the same way that he might a tumor: a unnecessary growth, one that needed to be excised as soon as possible. Where Luffy gives it freely, Law has had to relearn its use and its place within him. In moments like this it doesn’t feel like such an impossible task, when Zoro is so close and so warm.

“‘Course I trust you,” Zoro says, “Luffy trusts you.”

He says it with the same certainty of knowing that the sky is blue, that the compass always points north. It’s a certainty that Law can’t — _refuses_ to — ever possess and it makes something in his chest hurt like a bruised rib. A full week has slipped by since Zoro’s even spoken Luffy’s name. “And you always do what Luffy tells you to, don’t you?” Law says. It comes out smaller and meaner than it should.

Zoro studies him coolly. “Don’t be an asshole, Traf.”

Law traces the inside of Zoro’s wrist, over ridges of bright blue veins. “Room,” he says. A circle of light spins out, swallowing both of them. “Shambles,” Law continues and feels his powers sink deep, feels flesh give, feels bone and tendons bend and then sever. Zoro exhales sharply and Law cuts through both of his wrists.

“Oh,” Zoro says in a strange voice Law’s never heard before. His right index finger twitches. It’s crooked at the knuckle and the joint, broken once and never healed properly. Law cradles Zoro’s detached hands in his own; lifts them to his mouth to brush his lips along that damaged finger in particular. “I’ve always liked your hands,” Law murmurs against open palms weathered with blisters.

“That your idea of sweet-talk?” Zoro blurts out. Law shrugs. He places Zoro’s left hand to the side and gently uncurls Zoro’s right hand from where it’s formed a fist. Zoro watches him, transfixed. “You’re a fucking freak, Traf.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” Law replies and puts Zoro’s index finger in his mouth. Zoro’s entire face flushes dark. He looks good like that, Law decides, and bites down until Zoro’s breath hitches.

He’s never done this before. Not like this. Never like this. He’s thought about it of course. He’s always thinking about it: new ways to use his powers, to break, to see how far he can push a person’s absolute limit. The human body, as his father always used to say, is a miracle in what it can withstand and survive. And Zoro, if anyone, can take it. Law drags his tongue from the knuckle to the very tip of the finger, leaving it sticky with saliva.

Zoro’s gaze is heavy and fixed on his mouth. Law laces Zoro’s hands together as if to pray, like Law used to in church with his family every Sunday a lifetime ago. He sets Zoro’s hands aside and reaches for the stump of Zoro’s right arm. A pulse hammers beneath the skin, rabbit-quick. Law hums a few bars of an old hymn he’s long forgotten the words to. “You have such nice veins.”

Zoro’s legs fall open and Law settles himself between them. He rucks Zoro’s shirt up, gets his jeans undone and down around his knees. Zoro’s body jerks instinctually. He tries to reach for Law with his useless arms and Law feels the full and _violent_ shudder that runs through him. “Ask me for it,” Law says softly.

“Fuck yourself,” Zoro retorts but his voice wobbles on the first word.

Law is patient. Zoro always obeys an order. “Go on, Zoro-ya. I want to hear you say please.”

Zoro glares up at the ceiling, licks his lips. His legs spread as wide as they can, still trapped in the tangle of his jeans. His stomach presses to Law’s, rising and falling in fast bursts of air. “Please,” Zoro croaks.

“Please, what?”

“Please, Law.”

“Please, Law, what?”

Zoro’s nipples go pink when Law pinches them. He thrashes and Law settles his weight fully on Zoro’s hips. Zoro’s teeth are bared and on display. He has such sharp teeth. He could probably tear someone’s throat out with them. Probably has. The thought makes Law’s stomach twist pleasantly.

“Please, Law,” Zoro snarls out. “Fuck me.”

Law drapes his thighs over his shoulders. He spits on Zoro’s leaking cock and slides his mouth down over the length of it. Zoro curses, his hips bucking. In bed — in everything — Zoro is always hands and struggle. Like this it’s easy for Law to keep him pinned. He fucks his mouth down onto Zoro’s cock; feels Zoro’s bare thighs trembling on either side of his head, his heels digging in between Law’s shoulder blades, trying to draw him closer.

He pulls off for air with a loud, wet noise and a reluctant moan from Zoro. Law grabs for Zoro’s hands, peeling them apart.

“What—?” Zoro asks, dazed, and Law licks each palm and fists Zoro’s hands loosely around his own cock.

There’s another stifled whine as Zoro arcs his body up to stare at Law in incredulity.

“C’mon, Zoro-ya,” Law whispers against the head of Zoro’s erection; it twitches, mirroring the hands around Law’s own cock as they flex hesitantly. Law clasps his wrists and fucks Zoro’s hands; gets his lips back around Zoro’s cock and works at a harder, faster rhythm, choking himself, until Zoro comes with a faint moan and a flood of heat in Law’s mouth.

He’ll put Zoro back together in a bit. He’ll stitch his hands into their proper place and fuck Zoro on his back and feel blunt nails claw at his shoulders. He’ll lay in the sticky and exhausted silence afterwards and catch Zoro’s wrist and kiss each crooked knuckle once more in the hope that it makes up for all the things he’s meant to say and can’t quite trust himself to yet.

For now he sits between Zoro’s splayed legs. Zoro’s eye is shut tight, his breath coming in soft little pants. Law traces the muscles in his stomach. He rocks lazily against Zoro and gazes for a long time at the ruined stumps of his arms.  
  
  
  
  
Zoro’s wearing a dark blue tank top at breakfast the following morning. There’s no reason for him not to. There are no visible bruises, no marks on his wrists that indicate where Law cut him last night. Even still, it’s hard not to read the tank top as some kind of personal attack. Law stares furtively at him from across the mess for a good fifteen minutes until Shachi groans about dying of exasperation before they even get to Kaidou and shoves Law off the bench they’re sharing. He’s left with little choice but to drift in the direction of the Straw Hats’ table.

“I’m not saying,” Usopp grumbles, “that I don’t _appreciate_ what you do. I’m just saying that, like in the fight the other day, you can be a little excessive.”

“Stop whining,” Zoro retorts through a mouthful of bacon. “I barely got to cut the guy.”

“You nearly took his head off.”

“To be fair, he was trying to kill us,” Franky interjects.

“Because you shot at him.”

“I can’t control what people do.”

Miss Nico giggles. Zoro spots Law as he approaches. He shifts his arm from where it’s curled protectively around his plate of food — because he too is made up of habits and instinct. Zoro thumps the seat to his left and Law sits and spares a glance for the open seat on Zoro’s right. The Straw Hat table is a lopsided collection of chairs left empty and waiting. He sips his coffee, swallowing the slight ache in his throat with it.

“Survival is its own kind of skill,” Miss Nico says. “One that we’re all rather proficient at, I should think.”

“It’s amazing the things people can survive,” Law adds because he can’t resist. “Once during an interrogation, this guy we’d captured struggled so much, I accidentally twisted his arms and legs off.”

“Accidentally,” Usopp says, aghast. Zoro is grinning.

“He survived, though.”

Franky takes a reflective sip of his cola. “You got issues, kid.”

“The mess must be terrible,” Miss Nico says. “Isn’t there quite a lot of blood in the human body?”

“Twelve pints for the average adult male,” Law says. “But it’s primarily bloodless when I operate.”

“Less to mop up,” Miss Nico says, as if this explains it. Usopp’s eyes are bulging.

“It’s not as fun if there’s no blood,” Zoro says, too quiet for Usopp to hear, for anyone else but Law.

“You think so?” Law asks mildly. “You don’t think the act of causing pain is enough?”

“It’s knowing what your own hands are capable of.”

“I rather think my hands are capable of plenty.”

Zoro sips his orange juice, watching Law over the rim of the glass.

Penguin joins them, taking the spare seat between Franky and Usopp. Bepo wedges himself in on Law’s other side. Law lets them take hold of the conversation. Penguin flirts badly with Miss Nico and Bepo pesters them with questions about whether they’ve really been to Fishman Island and seen the mermaids, whether it’s true that they’ve sailed up into the sky. Their voices and their laughter mingle and wash over him like the tide.

Law looks at Zoro’s bare arms and decides that next time he should cut higher. He’d like to see if Zoro can hold still, if he’ll tremble when the Ope Ope no Mi slices through the solid cords of his biceps.

Zoro eats in silence. Here and there he pauses to flex his arms or roll his shoulders. Just once he rubs absently at the creases of his wrists. He lets Law study him. He lets him consider.  
  
  
  
  
A little after two in the morning the sweat has begun to dry on his back and neck. He sits in the dimming light of the gas lamp and scribbles notes and grammatical corrections into the margins of a history book he stole out of a library a few islands ago. Zoro’s asleep next to him — or was, but Law hears the change in his breathing that tells him Zoro’s awake a moment before Zoro shifts and rolls over onto his side. If he were Luffy, he’d simply paw his way into Law’s lap. Law thinks it’s all right though: that Zoro is decidedly not Luffy. He sets his book aside, leaving space for Zoro to come closer if he wants to.

“You never sleep,” Zoro mumbles.

This isn’t true. He slept after Dressrosa, after they escaped the marines. Luffy had instigated yet another party. Everyone was too loud and the sun was too bright and his shoulder throbbed with dull, relentless pain. All of it should have made his skin itch but he stood on Sunny’s deck and watched Luffy lead his newly christened Straw Hat fleet in rousing song. His laughter was braying, his chin smeared with food; he was careless with the wreckage of Dressrosa still behind him, unafraid of the open sea before him. He was the most infuriating person Law had ever met and he couldn’t stop staring at him, couldn’t stop a feeling of something strange and bright taking shape in the pit of him. He drank more than he should have; let Zoro walk him to his cabin, an arm still slung around his shoulders. He stumbled when he tried to shove Zoro away, succeeded only in tripping them, and Zoro was heavy above him and Law was so, so tired. He woke later: with Luffy wedged beneath his good arm as if he already belonged there and Law’s cheek tucked into the downy, greasy tussle of his hair. Zoro lay on the bed next to them, nodded in acknowledgement when he saw that Law was awake. They didn’t speak. They simply looked at each other and Law noticed that Zoro’s eyelashes were a lighter shade of green than his hair and longer than Law would have expected.

He doesn’t understand how it’s possible that Zoro has already forgotten about this. He doesn’t know how Zoro lets his mind slip away from him so easily every night.

It’s been ten days since Luffy’s been gone, since Law only just started to kiss the both of them.

“Did it hurt?” Zoro asks, thumb pressed to the inked black E on Law’s ring finger.

“Yeah. Did the letters and my hands when I was nineteen. Afterwards when I took the bandages off there was all this plasma on my skin. It was peeling and raw and sore for a week after. Like a bad sunburn.”

“Why?”

“Part of the skin’s natural shedding process. It’s essentially like a scab so that you can start to regrow new skin cells underneath—”

Zoro snorts into his pillow. “You are _such_ a fucking nerd.”

“You asked.”

“I meant why the tattoos. Why those.”

“I was starting to get a reputation by then. I liked it. I decided I wanted to make it mine completely.”

Zoro nods at the heart on Law’s chest. “For your crew?”

“In part, yes.”

Zoro touches the smile at the heart’s center. “I thought for a bit that this was Mingo’s flag. But it ain’t. It’s something else.” His fingertips are pressed hard to Law’s sternum and he knows that Zoro can feel the line of tension in his body. “Who?”

“Somebody from a long time ago,” Law says. Zoro traces the spikes of ink. His hand slides around to Law’s back, down along the notches of his spine. He has such big hands. Zoro could break him without much effort at all. Zoro lightly touches each tooth in the broad, black smile on Law’s back. Law makes himself take another even breath. His skin feels too tight. “It was for someone I cared — care about.”

“So he’s always with you.” Zoro collapses back onto the bed, arms stretched over his head. The scar on his chest is visible even in the fading light. Law studies the stitching, as he often has. It’s clumsy and uneven. A very old wound. “Two years ago,” Zoro says, following the path of his gaze. “Best fight of my life.”

“You won?”

“I got my ass kicked.”

“Did you do it yourself? The stitching, I mean.”

“Couple of friends did it the first time.”

“The first time,” Law repeats.

“It reopened.”

“Probably should have seen a doctor.”

Zoro snorts. “Probably.”

The scar tissue is shiny with age and dull pink along the line of the cut. It got infected at some point. Perhaps he left the stitches in for too long. For all the damage he’s sustained, Zoro has a near-perfect body. The negligence the stitching suggests is a shame. Law could have tended to an injury like this. He would have been so careful.

“What happened?”

“Oh,” Zoro says. “You know. Luffy.”

His hands twitch again, with that same impulse he’s usually able to control. He wants to reach into Zoro, pull the story and Luffy’s name from out between his teeth; to crack Zoro open and see if Luffy’s absence aches at the very center of him like it does for Law. He reaches for the scar and then falters, summons a Room instead and slices through Zoro’s bicep like he’s been picturing for the last three days. It does a little to soothe the ache in his chest.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Zoro says after a moment.

“Not unless I want it to.”

“You mean you ain’t even trying, Traf?” Zoro jokes.

Law runs his nails lightly down the inside of Zoro’s elbow, where he knows he’s sensitive. Zoro shivers quietly. “Are you so eager to be helpless around me, Zoro-ya?”

Zoro’s answering smirk is brief and almost mocking. He touches his severed limb with the same curiosity that he traced Law’s tattoos. Law picks up his book again and flips through its pages. The words in front of him don’t register. He’s focused on Zoro nuzzling his bare thigh and the arc of his thumb as it strokes back and forth along the vulnerable nape of Zoro’s neck.  
  
  
  
  
It takes a moment longer than it should for Miss Nico’s voice to reach him.

It’s two weeks since Luffy’s been gone. He’s with Bepo and Shachi in the chart room, pouring over maps and reports of the Beasts Pirates and he hasn’t slept, and he’s slow to register the way she says his name: urgent and low. “Can I help you?” he asks, looking up from the sprawl of maps. Or at least it’s what he intends to ask her but the question gets stuck in his throat and dies. She’s holding a scrap of paper between two fingers. It’s Luffy’s vivre card and it’s twisting up in smoke.

“Mr. Trafalgar,” Miss Nico says pleadingly. He’s resented her — resented all of them for weeks about their lack of fear, and now the way she says his name makes his stomach lurch. There are voices in the hall and the heavy slam of footsteps. The door flies open behind Miss Nico. Usopp and Zoro spill in, Franky just behind them.

“That can’t be right,” Usopp says, tripping on his words. Franky touches his shoulder but Usopp shrugs him off and grabs at Miss Nico’s wrist. “It’s Luffy, this is wrong, it can’t—”

Zoro is staring at him. His face is drawn and pale. His eye is wide. It’s Law’s ship. It’s his call and Zoro tells him this, with lips pressed white and a fist clenched uselessly on Wado’s hilt.

Luffy is reckless. They’re already halfway to Wano. Law tries to strangle the nausea rising in him and think logically. From their current position there’s nothing they can do, nothing that would be effective in the time it would take just to get to Luffy. Only a fool would endanger his crew and jeopardize their mission for the sake of a single soul. A spark flicks up from the vivre card, hangs suspended in the air, and then drifts to the floor and is snuffed out.

“Turn the ship around,” Law hears himself say from very far away. “Make for Whole Cake Island.”

The chart room erupts. Shachi barks orders over the loudspeaker and chairs scrape as they’re pushed back and his crew jumps to their feet, moving to their positions. Law shoves past the Straw Hats and bolts for the control room, Bepo on his heels. If they can get up to a decent speed, they can make it to Big Mom’s territory soon – faster if he can get a read on the Thousand Sunny’s location and teleport them the rest of the way.

“Take us up to thirty knots,” Law barks, storming into the control room.

“Turn us west,” Bepo adds, a big paw on Law’s shoulder, the only thing that doesn’t make him feel like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. The Polar Tang groans as Jean Bart turns her a little too fast.

“Make sure the cannons are combat-ready,” Law tells Penguin. “I don’t want interruptions, I don’t want surprises.”

“Aye, captain.” Penguin’s halfway to the door when Miss Nico appears, blocking his way. She’s still unusually pale but her gaze and her voice are steadier as they find Law.

“Mr. Trafalgar?”

“I’ll get us there as fast as I can.”

“Mr. Trafalgar.” She holds the vivre card out to him. The smoke has died to a thin, twisting trail that rises into the stale air of the control room. Little by little it restores itself. Law watches until the charred edges unfurl, until the smoke dies at last, and then he sits down hard in his captain’s chair. The Polar Tang’s pipes groan quietly as Jean Bart straightens them out, the ship going still, awaiting his orders.

“I suppose,” Miss Nico says, “we should hardly be surprised. It’s Luffy, after all.”

Law stares at the floor. Miss Nico drifts closer. She presses the vivre card into the palm of his hand. “Perhaps you’d like to hold onto it, Mr. Trafalgar.”

His pulse has finally slowed and he’s shrugged off Bepo and Penguin on his way back to the chart room when Zoro catches up with him, grabs him by the shoulders and slams him into the wall. “Let go of me,” Law says.

For once, Zoro doesn’t follow orders. His grip bruises. “What the fuck are you doing?” Zoro asks very quietly. “Why aren’t we turning around?”

Law takes the vivre card from his pocket. Zoro looks at it. The grip on Law’s shoulders slackens and the anger bleeds out of Zoro in a torrent. “Oh,” he says, in the same quiet voice that sounds nothing like him.

Law finds Zoro’s hands, folds his fingers around his wrists. “Room,” he says, the blue light folding itself around them. “Shambles.”

The hallway around them smears as they teleport. The walls of his cabin rise up on every side of them. His bed and desk come into focus. The door to his cabin is shut and locked, as he left it earlier that morning. Zoro leans on him with his full weight and his knees buckle.

When Law releases his wrists, Zoro takes a staggering step backwards. He doesn’t turn to leave though. He only undoes the front of his robes, the sleeves falling from his shoulders, the fabric pooling around his waist. “Here,” Zoro says touching the joint of his left arm.

He still struggles, on instinct, when Law grabs for him; it makes Law slip as he cuts into him. The Ope Ope no Mi severs his arm from his shoulder in a violent slash that lacks precision and it drags a low, shuddering moan out of Zoro. Law grabs him again, gets a fist wound into his haramaki. “C’mon,” Zoro urges. “You can make it hurt if you want to.”

And so Law cuts him at the wrist with a swipe that takes his right hand off, that makes all the air rush out of Zoro in a harsh, high whine. He shoves too hard and Zoro hits the floor, unable to catch himself, unable to push Law away when he sinks down on top of him and yanks the rest of Zoro’s clothes off.

He realizes, bleakly, that he’s been a fool; that he keeps letting the people he cares about out of his sight, out of his reach. He’ll do better from now on, though. Law takes Zoro’s ankles in his hands and cuts through tendon and bone, removing both of his feet. He’ll do much better, he decides, as he cuts along Zoro’s right knee and casts aside the lower half of his leg. He’ll do what it takes so that they can't keep leaving him behind.

Zoro’s soaked in sweat. His eye is bright with pain. Law buries his face in the crook of Zoro’s neck, breathing in the stink of him. He puts his mouth on his earrings to taste cold metal and bites down along his shoulder to taste blood. “Please,” Zoro whispers.

Law lays his palm flat against Zoro’s chest. “Room,” he murmurs. “Mes.”

Zoro’s heart fits neatly in his hand. He can feel it thunder even through the walls of the glass it’s encased in. Law traces the curve of the aorta, watches the muscles of it flex and jump. Blood pounds, the heat of it at his fingertips. It’s a wild, strong heart and yet fragile. He could crush it in his fist.

He presses Zoro’s heart back into his chest and his mouth to Zoro’s. “Please,” Zoro says again. Law kisses him with teeth. He tastes blood again when he bites Zoro’s lower lip but it only means that Zoro will bleed or not as Law wills it, that he is real and here beneath him.  
  
  
  
  
His watch tells him it’s a little after four in the morning though he hasn’t been asleep. Law eases himself up from the floor. He pulls the comforter off the bed, folding it over Zoro’s prone body.

The hallway is cold. He realizes, belatedly, that he forgot to put on shoes. The mess is empty except for Jean Bart, who’s on cooking duty, and Bepo. “You all right, captain?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“It’s fine,” Law says flatly.

“Yes, captain,” Bepo replies and baps him affectionately on the head with a heavy paw.

He sits at the far end of the mess and Bepo brings him coffee and a bright red and yellow den den mushi which has been silent but for intermittent bursts of static over the past two weeks. It blinks expectantly up at him. Steam fades from around the rim of the mug as his coffee goes cold.

Lami tore her leg open while she was learning to ride a bike. It wasn’t a bad injury but it was a deep enough cut. She hadn’t cried as Law pressed a towel to her knee to staunch the flow of blood or when their father sat her down in his old armchair. He opened up his surgical kit and brought out a chart of faces arranged along a scale — from a face that smiled to a face crumpled in tears — and asked her how badly it hurt. She hadn’t cried but she pointed again and again to the face that was weeping. Law held her hand while her father sewed her knee up. Five stitches in all. “Pain is a funny thing, Law,” his father said afterward. “It’s hard to measure.”

A burst of static emits from the den den mushi followed by a heavy click. The den den mushi’s face breaks into a grin and Luffy’s voice bursts from across the line and the leagues and leagues of ocean that separate them. “Hey! Anybody there?”

Law tries to speak and finds he can’t breathe around the solid, persistent ache in his chest. “Straw Hat-ya,” he manages to get out.

“Traf!” The den den mushi grins even wider. “Is that you?”

“It’s me. I’m here.”

“It’s been forever!”

Two weeks, Law corrects him silently. Somehow though, it hardly matters because it’s Luffy. Two weeks, a thousand miles, for the bright cascade of laughter in Law’s ear. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Luffy says, like this is a stupid question. Because of course he is. Of course he’s okay.

“Your vivre card—”

“Oh man, _right_. I was so hungry and I burnt up all the food we had with us, so I tried to eat this big fish instead because it looked really tasty and it turns out it was poisonous?”

“That sounds about right for you, Straw Hat-ya,” Law jokes, even as he grinds the heel of his hand between his eyes.

A snort. “Hey, Traf, how many times do I gotta tell you? You don’t gotta call me that, you know.

Law’s mouth twitches faintly. “I always forget. Luffy,” he says.

There’s a pleased rumble from the other end of the line. “Anyway,” Luffy continues, “Nami was pretty annoyed with me. But it was okay. Sanji’s sister saved me. She sucked all the poison right outta me. Which is kinda weird. She seems kinda weird too? But I think she’s probably all right.”

“Your crew was worried.”

“You’ll tell them I’m okay, won’t you, Traf?”

“I will.”

“Good,” Luffy says. “They don’t gotta be worried. We’ll be docking soon, and then once we get Sanji, we’ll be coming right back. Oh! Is Zoro with you too?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“’Course he is. Oi, Traf. Are you being nice to him?”

“Are you suggesting I’m not usually nice?”

“I _know_ you’re nice,” Luffy says, sounding both teasing and sincere in the same breath. “But sometimes Zoro’s mean to himself. Usually I can take care of that, but I’m not there. So you gotta be extra nice until I get back.”

“I’m being nice. I promise.”

“Good.” There’s a pause on the other end of the line. When Luffy speaks again, his voice has softened. “But y’know, I’ll be there soon. So you won’t have to wait too long.”

He’s alone in the mess. The rest of his crew is still on night watch and Bepo and Jean Bart are occupied in the kitchen, and so no one will see, if he puts his face in his hands, if he curls in closer to the den den mushi. He ought to say something into the pointed silence. There’s too much cluttered in his brain, and none of it is useful or worth saying after all, because absolutely none of it can change their current circumstances. “Zoro-ya misses you,” he gets out finally. “Very much.”

“Yeah,” Luffy says with gentle understanding. “Hey, Traf? You wanna know something?”

“What?”

“I really wish I could kiss you right now.”

A wave of static crackles. Their connection will be lost soon. Law clutches the den den mushi’s mouthpiece until it creaks in his grip. “Be careful out there.”

Luffy giggles. Law can picture him, sprawled in the soft green grass of the Thousand Sunny’s deck. He hopes, wherever Luffy is, that it’s warm, that the wind is with them. “Aw, Traf,” Luffy says, “but where’s the fun in that?”  
  
  
  
  
Zoro’s awake and doing push-ups when Law comes back to his — their — room. “Be done in a second,” Zoro says.

Law edges around him to his desk chair. “I don’t mind,” he says. “I like the view.”

Zoro rolls his good eye, even as he deliberately rolls his shoulders and sends a ripple down along the muscles of his back. He smiles but Law has been learning his smile and knows when Zoro doesn’t really mean it. He watches Zoro throw his body violently into each push-up. His calves and arms tremble with strain. There are shadows under Zoro’s eyes and Law realizes that for all the nights he’s envied Zoro’s slumber, they’ve been just been laying side by side, awake together in the dark.

He isn’t wounded and he doesn’t bleed, but pain is a funny thing to measure. Law is still learning, piece by piece.

Zoro finishes his set of push-ups, turns onto his back and begins a series of crunches. Law slides out of his desk chair onto the floor and crawls over. “I can help,” he says.

“You’re just gonna distract me,” Zoro grunts but he lets Law take hold of his ankles and anchor him.

“I’ve been thinking,” Law says.

“That’s never a good thing,” Zoro retorts between puffs of air.

He waits until Zoro’s finished a round of sit-ups and lays back on the floor, breathing with heavy satisfaction. Law’s hands move from his ankles, trailing up his calves, to touch the mangled scar tissue that stretches taut across both his knees.

“Traf,” Zoro says, exasperated, “I’m training.” He doesn’t try to stop Law though, as his hands drift higher along Zoro’s inner thighs until he finds the femoral artery. The insides of Zoro’s thighs are paler than the rest of him, the skin smooth and vulnerable.

“I’ll cut you here, tonight,” Law says. “With my scalpel. If you want me to.”

“Yeah? I’d bleed out in like five minutes.”

“Then I’ll have to be careful.”

“Faster,” Zoro adds, “if I’ve been drinking.”

“Then don’t drink tonight.”

Zoro is quiet for a long moment. Law is learning the silences, learning not to make them about himself. Every night that they can’t sleep he’ll make sure they’ll at least bear it together until morning comes. He’s patient after all and they have nothing but time before Luffy returns. Little by little, he’ll learn.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Zoro jokes at last but softly.

“I never do,” Law says. “Whether you believe it or not, I’m a man of my word.” Zoro’s legs go slack in his grip as his body unwinds and he lets Law come closer, lets him cup his face between his hands. “I already told you, Zoro-ya,” Law murmurs. “I’ll take care of you.”


	2. nine

The main issue with Franky — aside from his personal stock of cola taking up half the fridge and that he keeps calling Law “bro” when Law has told him not to several times already — is that he doesn’t knock. Miss Nico is intensely private and Usopp is still nervous around him. Franky on the other hand has no qualms about bursting into a room at any given moment, which is irritating at best and an actual problem on mornings like this one, when Franky kicks open the door and Law is halfway to sucking Zoro’s brains out through his dick.

“Oi, lovebirds,” Franky says cheerily.

Zoro curses and rolls off the bed, hitting the floor with a loud thud. Law gathers the sheets around his waist. “Do you _mind?”_ he says which is the most pirate-alliance-friendly way he can think to phrase “Go and fuck yourself.”

There’s a mortified groan from the floor. “Franky, I’m not wearing pants.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Franky says, eyebrows waggling. He throws the newspaper in Law’s face. “Check this shit out.”

Luffy beams and waves at them from the front page, his smile too big for his face. Law scans the article detailing the current state of Big Mom’s territories: islands in flames and chaos, Germa66 on the frontlines, how Straw Hat Luffy spit in Big Mom’s face and lived. He’ll read it in its entirety later. For now he looks at Luffy’s newest Wanted poster and processes the information there. Then he neatly removes the page listing the other Straw Hats’ bounties, tucks into one of his anatomy books where Zoro won’t look and drops the rest of the paper onto the floor next to Zoro. “Your captain is a nightmare,” Law says.

Franky grins. “Ain’t he?” He heads to breakfast, leaving the door hanging wide open. Law takes a measured breath and then gets up and closes it.

Zoro’s crawled out from behind the bed. He reads the paper slowly and when he looks up, his face is glowing. “The second he gets back,” Zoro announces, “I’m gonna suck his billion beri dick.” Law snorts. Zoro grabs his wrist, yanking him back into bed. He’s shaking with laughter, his fingers combing restless and eager through Law’s hair until it sticks up in every direction. It should be annoying but Law lets him do it anyway. “I love him so much,” Zoro mutters against Law’s mouth.

It’s not the time to relax, Law almost points out. Big Mom will be looking to avenge her wounded pride. Wano’s on the verge of becoming a war zone. Luffy’s bounty means that the eyes of the New World will be fixed upon whatever he does next. Whenever things seem to be going well is exactly when they need to reevaluate their strategy, prepare, make sure that their plans are watertight.

But Luffy’s on his way. The sun is out for the first time since they anchored, promising warmth and a glimpse of sky through the polluted smog draped across Wano. Zoro kisses him with morning breath and tongue, Law’s stubble rasping against his cheek. It’s a compelling counter-argument.

“After Luffy’s back,” Law mumbles, grinding his hips into Zoro’s, “I’m going to take your legs off so we can keep you in bed as long as we like.” He moves to kiss him again and his lips find the blunt jut of Zoro’s chin, as Zoro suddenly turns his face aside.

“Fuck, Traf,” he says. “It’s already halfway through the morning.” Law blinks. He pulls away, though, lets Zoro roll out from under him. “We gotta get up. Usopp’s gonna be annoyed if we’re late again.”

“Right,” Law says.

Zoro stretches with a loud groan and dresses quickly. He splashes water on his face and then jerks his head at Law in a brisk goodbye.

“Be there soon,” Law tells the door as it slams behind Zoro on his way out.  
  
  
  
  
They’ve been anchored along the Wano Kingdom’s western coast for the last few days, waiting for Kin’emon to complete his initial reconnaissance and ingratiating themselves with the small, starved village nearby. Law’s not thrilled that there are witnesses to their arrival, but the people of the village are few in number and their leader, a thin, middle-aged man with a gaunt face, wouldn’t meet his gaze on the few occasions they’ve spoken. Jean Bart has been making extra food outside of their usual meal times and distributing it amongst the villagers. Hopefully kindness is enough to buy them some time and some trust — Law’s not entirely convinced — until they make their push for the capital city.

Zoro’s got his favorite pair of cheap, cracked sunglasses on. He’s halfway through a beer and polishing his swords but mostly he’s watching several of the kids from the village cheer and laugh as they ride around on Bepo’s back. “Thought it’d be a little colder out east. But this is nice,” Zoro remarks as Law wades through the shallows up onto the beach.

“The weather will change soon.”

“Guess we gotta enjoy it while we still can then.”

“I suppose so.” Law studies him. “Where are your crewmates?”

“Robin and Usopp went to get us some clothes. Franky’s with a couple of fishermen farther down the beach. They got a busted-up boat he thinks he can fix.”

“You people _do_ know what it means, to lay low? Figured I should clarify.”

“Sure we do,” Zoro replies amicably, digging his toes into the sand. “It means being fucking bored as shit.”

“And what are you doing out here?”

“Sitting on my ass, like Kin’emon told me to. Thought that would make you happy.”

“Oh, it’s for _my_ sake? Generous of you,” Law drawls, snider than he intended. Zoro lifts his sunglasses with his thumb, eyebrows raised. Law picks at the question, the one that’s gotten lodged at the back of his brain again. “You just seemed like you were in a hurry earlier.”

“Huh,” Zoro says, and then: “Something on your mind, Traf?”

“Not particularly,” Law says.

“All you do is worry, man.” A large, strong hand wraps itself around Law’s ankle and squeezes. “You think too much.”

“I’ve got a brain. I like using it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zoro says, not unkindly. “Sit and be bored with me?”

“I’ve got work to do,” Law replies as he lets himself be pulled down onto the wet sand. He’s had years of practice at being patient. He can wait.  
  
  
  
  
He bides his time through the remainder of the afternoon, as Penguin enlists help from the Straw Hats and some of the villagers to scrub marine growth from the Polar Tang’s propellers and the entire effort devolves into a joyful water fight that the Heart Pirates decisively lose. He waits until Kin’emon returns, exhausted but brimming with information about the Wano Kingdom’s current political state. There’s dinner, with Franky griping about how his bounty’s never going to crack a hundred million and everyone making a careful point to not mention Black Leg’s new bounty in front of Zoro. After dinner, Zoro leaves to do his usual exercises and Law follows, waiting until Zoro finally finishes his tenth rep of bicep curls, his face pink and his skin dripping sweat and Law puts down the book that he wasn’t reading anyway.

Zoro stinks with sweat and body odor, but he doesn’t bother to rinse off before laying his head in Law’s lap. His eye is shut and his breathing comes slow and measured. He’s not sleeping though. Law has figured out that while Zoro dozes often, his eye never moves in a pattern that indicates he’s entered REM sleep. More often than not Zoro is simply resting and listening with his eye closed.

Law traces Zoro’s cheekbones and the thin line of the scar along the slope of his forehead until Zoro stirs. “Hey, Traf,” he says. “I been meaning to talk to you about something.”

Law waits.

“The cutting me up and shit. We should lay off that when Luffy gets back.”

“Should we?” Law says.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Because?”

Zoro’s eye finally opens. “‘Cause I said so.”

“I see.”

Zoro sits up fully and gives Law a narrow, searching look. “Fuck’s with you today?”

Law feels tense and a little strange himself. He can sense a fight coming. He likes to avoid those when he can but he has the sense there’s no way to avoid this one, so instead he leans into it: he stretches out on the bed, arms folded behind his head, arranges his body and his expression with mocking laziness. The corners of Zoro’s mouth get a little tighter. “I’m just trying to figure out,” Law begins, “why you don’t want Luffy to know that you like it when I cut you? I know he’s not smart. But I think even he’s probably noticed by now that you don’t mind getting stabbed.”

“‘Cause he don’t gotta know everything.”

Law feels a sharp pulse of irritation. “Oh no?”

“Whatever happens in Wano, whatever happened with Big Mom, he’s got enough shit on his mind. I don’t wanna have to explain this to him too. So let’s just not talk about it.”

“How nice,” Law says, “that he’s appointed you as his official keeper.”

Zoro glares. “Watch it, Traf.”

“You want me to lie to him.”

“Well, you’d be good at it, wouldn’t you?”

His jaw aches, locked together; he’s grinding his teeth. Law makes himself stop and then he makes himself take a deep breath and he thinks firmly, _Control_ until some of the heat drains from his face.

Zoro has the grace to look a little guilty. “He’s got other stuff to do. Stuff that’s more important than you and me fucking around. And…look. Just ‘cause we don’t say anything, that ain’t lying.”

“Unfortunately, by omission, it is.”

The guilt in Zoro’s expression snaps like a bone. He lurches off the bed and begins to get dressed, turning his back on Law.

“Oh, Zoro-ya,” Law adds, “omission is lying by deliberately excluding parts of the truth. In case you don’t know what it means.”

“I know what it means,” Zoro snarls, lying again. He’s angrier than he needs to be, which means there’s still something Law hasn’t dug out of him. He pushes down his own anger and narrows his focus. “Is this how you treat your captain? Like he’s a child?” Law continues, as Zoro pulls on his boots, his hands shaking a little and fumbling with the laces. “By that definition, what else have you lied to him about?”

Zoro rears up at that and Law is struck by the terrible, flat expression on his face. He looks at Law like he would a stranger, with cold, calculating intent: where to hurt, how best to cut him down. “You,” Zoro says at length, “don’t know everything. You act like you do but you don’t. You don’t know everything about me, or about him, and you don’t know shit about the two of us.”

“‘Us’,” Law repeats. The blankness in Zoro’s face flickers. Law makes himself smirk, because when you’re on the losing end of a fight, sometimes the only option is to keep deflecting. “See?” he asks. “Was that so hard?”

Zoro doesn’t answer. He picks up his sash and his swords and storms out on Law for the second time that day.  
  
  
  
  
Even though it’s a Wednesday, he doesn’t sit with the Straw Hats at breakfast. Shachi keeps his usual ribbing to a minimum and when Law brings over his dishes to deposit in one of the kitchen bins, Miss Nico’s dark, ever-curious gaze tracks him across the room.

Zoro doesn’t appear in the mess. Law’s cabin door is ajar, however. The extra pillow and blanket, the near-empty bottle of rum they passed back and forth a few nights ago after finally reaching Wano, the spare maintenance kit for his swords that he kept on Law’s bedside table are all gone. He can tidy up, remake the bed so that the sheets don’t smell like Zoro, rearrange his books now that he doesn’t have to worry about them getting stepped or spilled on. Law sits at his desk and looks at his room and thinks about all of the things that he can do now that Zoro has left.

Kin’emon returns in the evening. He gathers them in the control room and unfurls the latest and most detailed map they have of Wano’s landscape. He has news from the capital city too, and the first inklings of a plan to get them through the front gates without being noticed by Kaidou’s spies. It’s all extremely important and Law absorbs and processes maybe half of it because of Zoro, leaning in the doorway, refusing to come in any further. He stands with his arms folded and a faint scowl in place, and it frays at what’s left of Law’s patience.

He’s not hurt. He’s angry and mostly at himself because by now he should be used to having his plans unraveled by the Straw Hats. It figures that for all his efforts to hold things together during their separation from Luffy, for all his work to make their journey to Wano smooth and untroubled, the one thing he wouldn’t be able to anticipate and account for would be Zoro’s utter fucking arrogance.

He walks the beach with his men, taking in the shoreline, scouting hidden alcoves where enemy ships might lurk. He asks Kin’emon perfunctory questions about the history of the region that he doesn’t hear the answer to over the steady grind of his teeth. He’s angry at himself too for having gone and done it again: hinged so much fragile hope on Luffy instead of being able to settle things for and by himself.

He’s on first shift for the night watch and sits, sulking at the prow. Penguin drops off a plate of food that he doesn’t eat and a little bit later Bepo shuffles over. “I want to be alone,” Law informs him flatly.

“I know,” Bepo says. He sniffs at the plate of uneaten food with some interest and Law shifts over to make room for him. “How come Mr. Swordsman isn’t in your room anymore? Are you fighting with him?

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Bepo says sympathetically. He’s the only one Law can abide sympathy from. “Why?”

“Probably,” Law says, “because I’m an asshole.”

Bepo snuffles. “That’s not true, Law. You’re not an asshole.”

“You’re my first mate. You _have_ to say that.”

“Do I?” Bepo asks, bemused, snatching a couple grapes from the plate. “I guess you’re right. You usually are.”

The night stirs around them, the silent shell of the Polar Tang broken open against the cool evening air. Law folds his arms across his chest, the back of his neck prickling with hyper-awareness at the loud slosh of the tide, the distant monkey chatter amidst the dark trees further inland. He tries to set his thoughts aside — finds himself thinking instead of Punk Hazard, how after the fighting was over he watched Luffy’s long rubbery arms reach at once for Zoro, pulling him to his side. He thinks about the strange, complicated knot in his chest that he didn’t know how to untangle, the night Luffy fell asleep on him while murmuring old stories about sailing the East Blue years ago in a boat big enough for two. Law searches himself for that same twisted, knotted feeling from before. All he finds is bruised exhaustion and the same longing he can see now in the tired lines of Zoro’s face.

“Maybe he’s sad.” Something cold and wet pokes through the back of his shirt: Bepo’s nose as he nuzzles closer. “I was sad too when you went away. I wanted to go to Dressrosa but you wouldn’t let me.” Bepo tries to strike a pose but can’t quite lift himself off his belly. “I would have taken down that Flamingo with my kung fu.”

Law’s mouth twitches. “I’d have liked to see that.”

“It’s okay. It’s what you wanted. And you came back afterwards. So it’s okay.” Bepo looks at the dinner plate. “Are you gonna eat any more of that?”

Law nudges the plate over to him and Bepo scarfs up the remaining sandwich and vegetables in two bites. He burps and sighs, his breath fishy. His fur is musky and thick and familiar. Law leans back into Bepo’s bulk. He tries and fails again to shut his mind off, but at the very least he tries. That has to be worth something.  
  
  
  
  
He anticipated Zoro’s anger to be petty: mostly snide comments under his breath, long and withering glares leveled at him throughout the day. He thought it would be a simmering if manageable anger, but it soon becomes apparent that he’s guessed wrong yet again when it comes to Zoro. His only point of reference has been playful bickering with Luffy and genuine bickering with the cook.

Zoro meets Law with silence and a cold, blank gaze that reminds Law too much of the look on his face the night that Zoro stormed out. He’s never one to back down from a fight, and yet Law watches him actively retreat: speak less, drink more. It keeps Law’s teeth on edge, gnaws at the edge of his focus. Too many times when he should be listening to Kin’emon review their infiltration strategy, he’s studying Zoro’s stony expression for cracks in the surface.

He allows this to continue for another day and then the following evening follows Zoro ashore. Zoro’s at the water’s edge, the waves lapping at his feet as he gazes westward. He doesn’t turn as Law approaches, only clicks his tongue with faint disgust. “You’re pissing me off, Traf.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Law assures him. He releases Kikoku from its scabbard with his thumb and Zoro finally turns at the scrape of steel. “Come on. We’re going to spar.”

“Don’t feel like it.”

Law barks out a laugh. “Don’t bullshit me, Roronoa.”

There’s a small dojo on the outskirts of the village that Zoro’s visited in secret a couple times. Sometimes Law has followed him, to make sure he doesn’t get lost in the winding side streets. Sometimes there are young boys who gather and watch Zoro with big eyes, try their best to imitate his stance, his ridiculous combat style. Barefoot, amid the wooden clack of practice swords and the chalky haze of afternoon sunlight, Zoro looks more at home than he ever has aboard the Polar Tang. Law has tried not to let that bother him.

He leads and lets Zoro guess at how he knows the way.

The dojo is dark and empty. Law pries the door open and lights a few of the iron lanterns. The flames cast twisted shadows upon the walls. Zoro unsheathes his blades, fits his bandana around his forehead and Wado’s hilt between his teeth. This may not have been what Luffy meant when he told Law to be nice. Luffy would know better of course, but Luffy isn’t here. It’s just the two of them and Law’s hands are twitching with that anxious impulse that’s in danger of becoming yet another habit.

“Come,” Law orders, beckoning. Zoro actually laughs, too sharp and too mean — and then he lunges.

Law held his first knife when he was ten. He learned how to wound and maim from Doflamingo; learned how to guard and evade from Cora. He’s fought with a sword for nearly nine years and with Kikoku for five of them. He’s always been good with a blade because he’s always naturally excelled at any skill he decides to pick up, even on a whim. When it comes to swordplay he’s more than exceptional.

Zoro is better.

Kikoku vibrates in his grip as Law fends off blow after blow. Kitetsu screeches in pleasure; Law feels the dark malevolence of it every time he deflects, the weight of its curse rattling through Kikoku, up through his arm. Zoro drives him back and forth across the dojo. He’s a swirl of movement; a flick of his wrist; the snap of his sash at his waist as he moves just a little faster than Law can anticipate, making it impossible for Law to calculate, to look anywhere but at Zoro.

The lantern light refracts off Shusui’s edge as Zoro swipes at him. Law jerks his head back but there’s a sliver of pain and dampness on his cheek. He touches his face and his fingers come away bloody.

“Careful,” Zoro taunts softly. He bends his head and licks Law’s blood from Shusui, his eyes gleaming in the dark like a predator’s.

They circle one another and Law reevaluates, reassesses. It’s possible that between his frustration and lack of sleep this might not be one of his better plans. Zoro is full of a control that Law admires and a rage that he knows too well. Put together they’re difficult to anticipate, even more so to fend off. There’s a decent chance that he won’t win this fight. But Zoro’s smile is genuine and full of terrible glee and Law feels himself light up from the inside out.

Zoro comes at him again, Shusui and Kitetsu swinging in wide arcs that aim for and just barely miss Law’s throat, his shoulder, his knee. Kikoku snarls as it clashes against Kitetsu. Law ducks and rolls; Zoro follows, Kitetsu’s point driving to strike him through the center of his chest. Law unfurls his fingers, lets go of Kikoku with his right hand. He dodges again and the blue light of his Room expands rapidly. “Shambles,” Law spits out. Kitetsu and Zoro’s arm clatter to the floor but Zoro’s head is already snapping around to follow Law’s escape route. Wado’s blade catches and tears the sleeve of his shirt and Law stumbles as he backs away, out of range.

The lantern lights flicker. Law’s panting and there’s a thin layer of sweat gathering along his forehead, beneath the brim of his hat. He makes himself take a deep breath and then another and then another until the nervous tension in his chest eases somewhat. They gaze at Zoro’s amputated arm, lying bloodless and bent on the tatami mats. Law’s mouth goes unexpectedly dry; his own arm throbs with phantom pain. “You’re afraid,” he realizes aloud.

“Of you? Dream on, Traf.”

“You’re afraid of what he’ll think if we tell him.”

Zoro stills. The smirk slips from his face.

“You don’t want him to see you like that, do you?”

A flash of steel is his only warning and Law dodges as Shusui tries to take his head. Wado clashes against Kikoku. Law’s arms strain under the blow. The exertion of using his powers hangs off him like dead weight — he struggles for leverage as Zoro bears down on him. From the corner of his eye, Shusui snakes towards him. Zoro’s fast but Law’s survival instincts are faster. “Shambles,” Law says and ducks as Zoro’s other arm and Shusui fall.

The color has drained from Zoro’s face. His upper lip is pulled back in a full snarl, teeth bared around Wado. Even without his other swords his knees are bent and ready to fling him into another onslaught. Law takes a cautious step back and then another as Zoro follows him.

“You think he hasn’t seen me at my lowest point?”

“That was Dressrosa. That’s different,” Zoro spits out.

“How?” Law asks as Zoro lunges at him. Law sidesteps and then severs his Achilles tendon; Zoro hits the floor knees first. He still doesn’t let go of Wado though, and it forces Law to keep his distance. “Because it would make you look weak?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You think he’d care? That your strength is the only thing that matters to him?”

“It matters to me,” Zoro says quietly. He’s shaking with anger or maybe something else. Law can’t tell. He’s not exactly sure how he got to this point, asking for someone’s implicit trust when he can barely give it himself. Perhaps, like many things in Law’s life lately, this is also Luffy’s fault: he has a knack for making the impossible come so naturally.

“Shambles,” Law says. A Room expands around them and quickly reassembles Zoro’s body. Law keeps Kikoku unsheathed but Zoro remains where he is. He takes Wado from between his teeth and holds it across his lap. After a moment Law joins him on the floor, their knees bumping against each other’s.

“Two years ago, when I got this.” Zoro’s still looking at Wado as he gestures to the scar across his chest. “I promised Luffy I wouldn’t lose another fight while I was his swordsman, that I’d be the best for him. I only ever made a promise like that to one other person in my whole life.”

Law’s fingers follow Zoro’s, tracing the seam of scar tissue. Zoro tenses for a moment and then relaxes. Law pushes his hand all the way under the collar of Zoro’s shirt to splay his hand across Zoro’s chest, his heart fluttering beneath Law’s open palm.

“I never met a guy like Luffy before.”

Law smiles faintly. “Me neither. He compels us to do strange things, doesn’t he.”

Wind whistles in the eaves of the dojo, the lanterns flickering again, threatening to go out. There’s the smell of coming rain in the air. Law looks at the thin, neat scar that cuts through Zoro’s eye; at the old, faded scar on his chest. He thinks about Zoro in his bed on hotter nights, naked and with the sheets kicked off: the lines of pain and damaged tissue that run all the way down his body. “I haven’t had a scar in years,” Law admits. “I just keep fixing or removing them.”

“How do you remember all the stuff that’s happened to you? All the places you been or the people you fought?”

“I have my ways.”

Zoro glances at the flares of ink along Law’s collarbone. “Like with your one friend.”

“Corazon,” Law says, startling both himself and Zoro. “His name was Corazon.”

Zoro slumps, his forehead resting against Law’s shoulder. His hair is coarse, damp with sweat and getting long enough that he’ll have to start tying it back soon. It smells like brine and like Law’s shampoo still because he hadn’t packed his own soap and while they were still rooming together he kept borrowing Law’s without permission. It should have been annoying. It wasn’t.

“I didn’t mean it,” Zoro mumbles. “When I called you a liar.” He blindly finds and strokes the narrow cut on Law’s cheek with his knuckles. “Didn’t mean that neither.”

“Maybe I’ll keep this one,” Law says. “I was thinking about getting a tattoo to remember you by. But this works too.”

“You know, Traf, sometimes you say really nice shit.”

“Yeah. Don’t tell anyone. You’ll ruin my rep,” he says, as Zoro’s shoulders shake with hidden laughter.  
  
  
  
  
They get caught in the rain on the walk back through the village. Thunder rolls through the sky and rain seeps into the cuffs of his jeans and into his shoes. They should hurry but Zoro ambles along, boots in one hand, the clay-like mud sucking at his bare feet. Law slows to match his pace, watching as Zoro tilts his head up towards the sky.

Law doesn’t insist that Zoro join him, but they end up at his quarters together nevertheless. He fetches them towels and lights the lamps as Zoro shakes the rain out of his hair, doglike. Law undresses in the flickering glow and when Zoro moves to follow suit, Law stops him. “Wait,” Law says and Zoro, of course, obeys.

He still has the clean linen sheets from the surgical bay, folded up and forgotten beneath his bed. Law lays them out along the floor, and then lays Zoro out on top of them. He unzips his surgical kit, pulling it open like a ribcage. The glow from the gas lamps shimmers, molten, in the curved blades of his instruments. He tosses his hat onto the bed and retrieves his trauma scissors first, opening and closing them, letting Zoro follow the jaw-like movement of the blades. “They’re blunt. They won’t cut you if you struggle.” He lets the joke to sink in, then tucks the blade beneath the hem of Zoro’s left trouser leg.

Zoro is very still as he listens to the scrape of metal. The cheap fabric frays and splits as Law works the scissors up along the outer seam of his thigh. “No underwear,” Law observes, slicing neatly through the waistband of his trousers. Zoro licks his lips. Law slides the scissors down the front of Zoro’s shirt, snipping away the buttons.

Beneath the caked-on mud, Zoro’s feet are thick with calluses. His shins are dotted with bruises. Law runs his fingers along his ankle bones until he finds the scar tissue circling Zoro’s lower calf. “Who did this to you?”

“I did it to myself.”

“You tried to take your own legs off,” Law says, incredulous. “Holy shit. You _do_ have a fetish.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Zoro snaps.

“Then why?”

“Because—”

“Shambles,” Law murmurs, cutting him directly along the scar line and detaching his left foot from his body.

Zoro’s answer gets lost in the surprised grunt that escapes him instead. He swallows hard and then continues. “Because I had to protect my crew. I was trapped. I needed to get free. Needed to kick somebody’s ass.”

There’s a matching wound on his right ankle, a little higher than the one on his left. They’re deep, uneven cuts. He would have bled quite badly. Most men would pass out trying to self-amputate. Law remembers a passage from book he read as a child, about how a fox caught in a trap will gnaw its own leg off to free itself. He strokes the shiny ripple of the scars and wonders if Zoro was able to saw all the way down to the bone.

He cuts through the rest of Zoro’s right trouser leg. With the scissor blade he flips the remaining fabric aside, exposing the curve of Zoro’s cock. Zoro’s breath is starting to come in fast, quiet pants. When he inhales, Law can hear the echo of a rattle in his chest, suggesting residual trauma that goes all the way down to the core of him.

“You work so hard to maintain your body, don’t you. For them.” Law pauses deliberately. “For him.” His thumbs find the jut of Zoro’s hips, working at the tension he can feel there until it gives, until Zoro finally moans in relief. “You have nice legs,” Law says, admiring the stump of Zoro’s calf. He bends his head to kiss the break line. “I’ll take those next. Shambles.” Zoro fails to stifle another moan as Law cuts him along both thighs. He carefully lays Zoro’s legs to the side.

“Luffy told me you spent the last two years training with your sworn enemy.”

“Law—”

“That can’t have been easy for you,” Law murmurs. “You’re a proud man.”

Zoro’s chest rises and falls faster. Law drags his finger across the inside of Zoro’s upper arm, slicing through his bicep. Zoro’s eye squeezes shut for just a moment, the scar tissue puckering slightly. It was a clean cut. Whoever gave it to him intended for him to live.

“You did that for them too, didn’t you? For him?”

“I—”

“Shambles,” Law says gently, and Zoro’s other arm comes undone at the shoulder. His dismembered hands are clenched in fists. Strained muscle stands out along his forearms. Beneath him, Zoro’s body strains in a helpless arc of pain and need. Law lays his hand flat across Zoro’s ribs, pushing down until he hears the faint rattle again as Zoro takes another shuddering gasp of air. “You’d do anything for them, wouldn’t you.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question so he doesn’t force Zoro to answer. “I get it. I would have done anything in Dressrosa, if it meant avenging Corazon.”

“Luffy know that?” Zoro challenges.

“Luffy’s good at a couple of things,” Law replies. “Letting other people play the martyr isn’t one of them.”

“You thought you were gonna die?”

“I had considered it as a potential outcome.” Law kneads Zoro’s stomach, pressing down on a faded bruise. “I decided I was ready.”

A shadow of understanding flickers across Zoro’s face. “Is that why you left your crew on Zou?” he asks quietly. “‘Cause you didn’t want them to see?”

“Does Luffy know you’ve almost died for him?” He knows from the flash of something — steel, fear — in Zoro’s expression that at last he’s guessed correctly. “Some things,” Law continues at length, “are more important than dreams and promises. Sometimes the pain says more than we can.”

“Law.” There’s an edge in Zoro’s voice. Broken on the floor of Law’s bedroom, though, he can’t run away like last time. “I don’t…I don’t wanna make him think about this kinda shit.”

“He’d want to know,” Law says. “Even if he doesn’t like it, even if it upsets him, he’d want you to tell him.”

“I know that,” Zoro snarls, slamming his head back into the floor. “I _know_ that.”

Law releases the Room around them and sits back on his heels. He considers Zoro, helpless amongst the ruins of his clothes and his own body. His cock is fully flush against his stomach and Law strokes it lightly, pre-cum trailing sticky and delicate at the head. He braces his hands on Zoro’s shoulders and leans in until he can feel the heat of Zoro’s breath on his cheek. Zoro’s pupil is dilated; blood blooms just beneath the surface of his skin and his face is dark with color. “You’re strange, Zoro-ya,” Law murmurs. “I’d like to see what goes on in that mind of yours. I’d like to open up your head. Crack your skull in two. Pick apart your brain.”

A pinprick of pain, his bottom lip between Zoro’s teeth. “Love it when you talk dirty,” Zoro whispers hoarsely and Law smothers a laugh in a kiss. Zoro turns away first. He’s covered in a film of sweat. He tosses his head, earrings jingling; Law catches them between his fingers, pulling a little too hard. Zoro makes another soft noise and pushes his face into Law’s hand.

“Hold still,” Law says and gets his scalpel from his kit. He cuts Zoro high on the inside of his right thigh. A neat, thick line of blood rushes to the surface, shining and dark. The toes on Zoro’s dismembered feet curl. Law sets down his scalpel and swabs the cut with disinfectant. He wraps it with bandages to put pressure on the wound and then wipes the scalpel off on a spare scrap of clothing. Zoro is trembling just a little. Law kisses the scar across his eye. He takes his time: kisses the scar under his chin — “Tripped and cut my face open on the stairs when I was a kid” — and the scattered pink scars along his collarbone — “This one time, I was fighting a giraffe—the hell you smirking at, Traf?” — tracking the path of damage and pain carved into Zoro’s very skin.

Zoro arches again, keening, when Law slicks his fingers with oil and presses three inside of him. Their bodies slide together as he sinks into Zoro, hips flexing, Zoro moaning and urging him deeper, harder, until he spills himself across both their stomachs. Law pulls out, ignoring the disappointed grunt from Zoro beneath him. He grips himself, thighs trembling, face flushed, and comes on Zoro’s chest, streaking the planes of muscle and the scar that divides Zoro in two.  
  
  
  
  
The best plan, at least according to Kin’emon, is to split up. He proposes this strategy to them after dinner. “We can’t have too many new faces entering the capital at once,” Kin’emon explains in somewhat bracing tones. “Not if we want to infiltrate without attracting attention from Kaidou’s men.”

What he means, Law suspects, is that he’ll have his hands full enough as it is with just the Straw Hats. Law would be hard-pressed to disagree. Still. Law swills his coffee and studies the map laid out between them, marked with various, color-coded pins. “And that’s the only way?”

“It’s the best option,” Kin’emon says, swiping at his brow with the sleeve of his yukata.

“So we should divide our forces further?” Miss Nico asks skeptically from her side of the table. “I’m not sure that’s the wisest course of action.”

“What if we get ambushed and need backup?” Usopp adds.

Franky grunts. “Luffy and everybody else ain’t gonna be able to find us if we’re scattered everywhere.”

Zoro sits to Law’s right, silent and sipping the sake that Bepo warmed for him. Law chews at the inside of his mouth. “We could keep an eye out,” he suggests finally. He moves the yellow pin that Kin’emon selected for him and places it in a small cluster of woods between the capital and Kaidou’s main factory. “My crew and I can set up base here. Our ship will be easy to hide. From this position we’ll be able to track Kaidou’s production system and supply lines and still keep an eye on the coast if Luffy arrives or if Kaidou calls in backup.”

It’s a good point. He knows it is because Miss Nico’s brow furrows as she tries and fails to find a valid counter-argument.

“We should depart as soon as possible,” Kin’emon presses. “As early as tomorrow if we can, in order to pass by without attracting attention or risking combat.”

“Avoiding combat would be ideal,” Usopp mutters.

Law glances at Zoro. “Thoughts?”

Zoro shrugs. “If you think this is best, Traf.”

It’s not much an answer but Law waits until after they’ve set a rough time for departure the following day and drift out of the chart room one by one. Franky and Robin head above deck. Usopp retreats to the impromptu laboratory he’s set up with Shachi near the main engine, much to Law’s chagrin. Zoro heads for their room and Law follows. He relegates himself to the bed and sits on his hands, watching as Zoro begins to gather and pack his sparse belongings. Logically, Kin’emon’s plan is good. Privately, Law wants to kick himself for agreeing to it. “I’ve pissed you off again, haven’t I?” he ventures. He tries to make it sound like a joke but it comes out sounding stiff and strained and the impulse to kick himself doubles.

Zoro looks surprised. “No. It’s a good idea.”

“Almost as good as letting Luffy run off to Whole Cake Island by himself.”

“Just because I don’t like a plan doesn’t mean it’s not good,” Zoro retorts. “Also, he ain’t by himself. He’s with Nami. And if she can’t keep him in line, you and I are definitely fucked.” He’s trying for a joke too but it’s as bad as Law’s own attempt. “I’ll be fine,” Zoro says at last.

He must not look terribly convinced because Zoro snorts and abandons his pack and flings himself onto the bed next to Law. They sit together without talking for a little while and then Zoro lifts the hem of his robe and undoes the front of his trousers. “I would have settled for a goodbye kiss,” Law says. Zoro ignores him, shoving his pants down around his knees. He fiddles with the knot of the bandages that Law tied yesterday. “Don’t pick at it,” Law snaps as Zoro continues to ignore him and yanks the bandages loose.

The cut on the inside of his thigh is about two inches in length and still a bright, blushing red. Zoro traces it with the tip of his finger. “It’s all…skinny and secretive.” He looks up at Law, grinning. “It’s perfect for you, huh, Traf?”

Something gets tight and strange in Law’s throat. He sort of wants to shove Zoro away from him and sort of wants to hold him again. He settles for his hand on Zoro’s bare thigh. “We’ll catch up with you soon enough.”

“If you see Luffy before I do, you better kiss him twice for me.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Zoro-ya,” Law says. “Do what Kin’emon tells you to and lay low. I mean it this time.”

“You’re no fun. It’s like I been saying, you worry way too much. We’ll be right back.”

“People say they’re coming back all the time,” Law fires back wryly, and then wishes he’d kept his mouth shut. The lack of sleep is getting to him.

“Guess you’re lucky then, that you got Luffy and me.”

“That’s one word for it,” Law jokes half-heartedly.

Zoro leans into him, head tucked just under Law’s chin. “Pain can be love too,” Zoro says hesitantly.

Law tries to imagine Zoro even younger than he is now, wounded but still struggling to his feet with his sword aloft, still trying to pledge himself to Luffy. He thinks of Bepo crying and clinging to him in the jungles of Zou and he thinks of blood in the snow. The newly forming scar on his cheek throbs dully and he pulls Zoro a little tighter, a little closer, for just a moment more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhh sorry for like, zero luff in this chapter. he'll be there for all of chapter 3 though, and he'll bring resolution and also hugs.


	3. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, the lesson here is don't be a numb nuts like me and try to write concurrently with canon, because then you might spend a month and a half rewriting the same final chapter over and over because you're not sure? if/when/how oda's gonna give you? a boyfriends reunion?
> 
> a major shoutout to my friend/beta reader bee for constantly bearing with me.

“I think I’m having a fucking aneurysm,” Law says, as the dust of Bakura Town is still settling in their wake and he has a second to finally catch his breath. A second is all he gets though, before Luffy collides with him. Law staggers, nearly toppling over into the dirt. Arms coil around his neck and fingers twist into the back of his hair, yanking his face up in order to get a better look at him.

“Traf!” Luffy cries happily.

“Straw Hat-ya,” Law begins in complete exasperation, “We’re — we really have to—”

“I _told_ you not to call me that!”

“Stra—Luffy—” Law says sternly, not just for Luffy’s sake but for his own, because his hands are moving, unbidden, winding into Luffy’s yukata; because Luffy himself is warm and vibrating and in his arms again at last, _at last_ . Law makes himself focus: on the adrenaline still pumping through his veins and the panic at being recognized by Hawkins; on the little one — Tama, he thinks is her name — staring at them, not to mention the dozens of other witnesses in town who have already seen their faces. Luffy leans in to kiss him and Law makes himself turn away. He makes his hands move, unwind from Luffy’s yukata and yank them apart amidst much whining. “Luffy, we have to _go.”_

“Don’t be shy, Traf, I was enjoying the show,” Zoro drawls. Law glares at him over Luffy’s shoulder. It’s hard to be annoyed with him too. In the weeks they’ve been apart, Zoro’s grown his hair out and started tying it back just like Law knew he would. He looks good. They both look good and for the first time in months, they’re close enough that he could reach out and tug playfully at the sleeve of Zoro’s haori, could push Luffy’s long, shaggy bangs out of his eyes.

Law clutches Kikoku with both hands to keep them still. “We need to get moving.”

Luffy pouts but Zoro’s nodding. “He’s right, Luff. It ain’t gonna be too hard to find us if we’re standing right out in the open.”

“Fine,” Luffy says, sulking. He grabs Law’s left wrist, though, and Zoro’s right. His fingers are sticky with food and his face shines with sweat. He’s smiling and Zoro is too, big and crooked and genuine. They’re so stupid. They’re both so incredibly fucking stupid. “Told you I’d be right back,” Luffy says.

“So you did,” Law replies wryly, but he lets his hand slip into Luffy’s, lets himself hold onto him a little bit tighter.  
  
  
  
  
Luffy only lets him go when they reach the castle and Law’s camp. The rest of the Straw Hats rush him at once and it’s easy for Law to slide away, giving them space as they paw anxiously at each other and talk too loud and too fast. Sanji keeps touching Luffy’s shoulder; Nami’s got him by the front of his yukata so she can properly shake him; Chopper clings to Luffy’s leg. Law busies himself with checking on Bepo, and their camp’s defenses, and their food and medical supplies for the new arrivals they need to account for. He lets his mind drift into a familiar focused, removed state.

Night comes on fast. With Hawkins at large they can’t risk a fire, but Black Leg manages to make them a feast out of dried fish and bowls of chopped, pickled radishes and tea. Zoro reappears out of the surrounding forest towards the end of dinner. He seems distracted, his attention on the sword he took from Luffy at least until he catches sight of his crew. Chopper launches himself into Zoro’s arms and Nami goes into another immediate scolding which Zoro takes in stride. Sanji, setting out several new bowls of radish and fish, freezes at the sight of him.

“Oh,” Zoro says flatly. “You.”

“Me,” Sanji agrees.

“You always gotta be such a pain in the ass, don’t you,” Zoro says, disapproving, and ignores Nami when she smacks him. Sanji’s expression tightens. He retrieves a large jug of sake he tucked away beside the tea kettle and hands it to Zoro wordlessly. Zoro hefts the jug in his grip, glaring first at the label, then at Sanji. “This is the cheap shit,” he says.

“You _like_ the cheap shit,” Sanji retorts.

Zoro almost smiles. “Fuck you,” he says. Luffy bursts out laughing and the tension between them retreats, like the tide rushing out. They pile together. Zoro sits down to eat and Luffy drapes his legs across Zoro’s lap. Nami and Carrot have wrapped themselves up together in a big blanket, with Chopper slowly falling asleep between them. Kiku and Kin’emon sit a little ways off, a little too close to one another, her foot gently nudging his.

Law looks down at his bowl. He stirs cold rice with his chopsticks and eats without tasting it.

They make this part look easy too: they collapse back into one another, all the time and distance between them rendered meaningless.  
  
  
  
  
There’s still plenty to attend to after dinner. Most people head to bed early but Law organizes the first watch and sees them as far as the front gate when they set out on patrol. The lights of Okobore Town are a distant glow, like the last of the fireflies at summer’s end. He’s not one for even cautious optimism but the evening is quiet and everyone has finally been collected under his supervision and is safe — for now — within the crumbling walls of Oden Castle. He doesn’t relax, exactly, but he comes close.

The last of the food’s been packed away when Law returns to the dark fire pit. Brook’s acquired a shamisen, on which he plucks out occasional, trembling chords. Luffy’s crawled fully into Zoro’s lap, licking pickled radish juice from his fingers. Law stares at them. He shouldn’t be staring. He can’t help it.

“It’s getting late,” he says at last. “I’m going to turn in.”

Zoro’s eye gleams, catlike, his chin resting on Luffy’s shoulder. “Are you?”

“Where’s Traf’s tent anyway?” Luffy demands. “Can I see it?”

“If you must.”

Brook twangs a low chord. “Aah, to be young and in love again,” he sighs. Law flushes. He grabs the collar of Luffy’s yukata and hauls him away from the fire pit; Luffy trails obligingly after him. Zoro brings up the rear.

His tent is on the far end of their camp, just beneath a cluster of plum blossom trees. Luffy kicks at fallen, scattered petals and the air fills with flurries of pink and white and red that cover Zoro’s shoulders and catch in Luffy’s hair. “Looks nice,” Luffy announces.

“If you’re quite finished—” Law begins and then makes a useless grab for Luffy, who shoves right past him and scrambles into the tent. “You can’t just—”

“I forgot you’re kinda cute when you’re pissed,” Zoro says, because he’s a shithead, and then slides into the tent as well.

Law pushes in after them. “You can’t stay here,” he says wearily. The flap falls closed behind him. He hasn’t put the lamp on yet and the last of dusk seeps through the canvas. He can’t quite see Zoro or Luffy but he can hear their breathing, and he can feel it too, warm and against his cheeks. They’re standing very close to him. “You should be with your crew,” Law says.

“Yeah?” Luffy asks. His hand is on Law’s hip.

“There’s only one bedroll.”

“I bet we could figure it out,” Zoro drawls in his ear, his arm around Law’s waist.

Luffy snickers. “Traf’s blushing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Law snaps.

Lips brush the side of his neck, and Law’s pulse pounds beneath the curve of his jaw. “You are,” Luffy mumbles. “I can feel it.”

There’s so many things to say: plans and the entirety of Whole Cake Island to discuss, and buried beneath all of that, the things that he wanted to tell Luffy with every day that passed, that he collected and set aside and promised himself he’d say if Luffy ever came back to them. Law’s chest gets tight and his throat gets tighter and when Luffy’s hand cups the back of his head and pulls him closer, he can’t quite find the words to protest. “Traf,” Luffy says and finally kisses him. His lips are warm and dry. He makes that little noise in the back of his throat, like a rumbling purr, the one that Law likes, that he _missed_ so goddamn much.

Callused fingers touch his chin, take hold of him, pull him the other way. “Traf,” Zoro murmurs, and kisses him too. Together, in the dark, they take turns pulling him back and forth.

He remembers the first time he fell into the sea after eating his Devil Fruit: how his whole body went heavy and he sank fast beneath the raging waves, swept away by something far bigger than he could ever hope to be.

This time, he doesn’t let himself fight it. He lets himself be taken.  
  
  
  
  
They can’t stay for too long in the same place, as Kin’emon explains over breakfast the following morning. “Wano is a small country,” he says, with an appreciative nod to Sanji as he refills their cups of tea. “Kaidou has eyes everywhere.”

“Okay,” Luffy says. “First we’ll go get the rest of my crew.”

“The capital is on the other side of the island. It would be best to first make contact with Kanjuro and Raizo. They’ve gone to a mountain village not far from here and we can…” Kin’emon’s voice trails off as Luffy begins to frown.

Law lets them bicker. Either plan means at least a day’s hike through the forest to where they’ve anchored the Polar Tang, near the wide mouth of the river. It also means leaving behind Okobore Town, which doesn’t seem to have occurred to either Kin’emon or Luffy. Nor that, should Kaidou come looking for them, the only ones who will be left to suffer his reprisal will be the villagers. Law’s already weighed the cost and made his decision. Staying here offers them nothing but danger and the possibility of ambush. Besides: he’s not a hero. He’s not even a particularly nice person.

Luffy is, though. No matter how much he may insist otherwise.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. Words rise in him and die.

“What happened?”

Law blinks, lurching from his thoughts. Kin’emon looks exhausted and Luffy’s considerably more chipper, which means that Luffy’s plan has won out — of course. He settles onto the half-rotting log next to Law, juggling two separate plates of eggs and peering up at him.

“I’m just thinking,” Law says. Words twist, get stuck sideways in his throat.

“No,” Luffy says and pokes him in the cheek. “What happened? Hawkins get you?”

Law touches the same spot, feeling the slight rise of the scar on his cheek. “No,” he says. He intends to leave it at that. Except that Zoro stares at him for a moment too long before looking away. Except that Luffy sees him do it.

“You guys fight or something?” Luffy asks, frowning, and it’s frankly _galling_ the effect his disapproval manages to have on Law.

“Sparring.”

“I got a little carried away,” Zoro adds.

“That was stupid,” Luffy says, still squinting at the scar. A little wrinkle appears between his eyebrows.

“Anyone for more breakfast?” Law asks, even though Luffy’s already plowed through more than half their meat rations. It has the intended effect: both Bepo and Luffy cheer and go running for Sanji. Law’s crew readily follows, each of them shouting over each other to be heard as they tell Luffy their best stories from Wano thus far. He should call for silence before they’re detected, before the ache behind his eyes develops into a full-fledged migraine. Law searches himself and finds he doesn’t have the energy or any real interest in doing so. He sits and sips lukewarm coffee from his thermos and after a moment Zoro slumps down next to him, in the space that Luffy left vacant. He knows that Zoro can feel it too: the weight of things unsaid.

“Thought you weren’t gonna lie to him,” Zoro says.

“I haven’t lied yet,” Law says, which is technically true.

“Even by omission?” Zoro asks. Law’s gaze cuts to him, to the humorless little smile twisting Zoro’s mouth. “You talk such a big fucking game, don’t you, Traf?” he says softly.

The silence stretches taut between them. Law looks away first, back to Luffy.

“It’s weird, you know,” Zoro says at length, “him not knowing. I think...that maybe you were right.”

“Do you?” He means for it to come off careless, but instead it’s hesitant. Luffy, sitting between Shachi and Penguin, laughs at one corny joke after another and then chokes because his mouth’s still crammed full of food. It’s so good to hear him laugh again. “ _Now_ you decide to start listening to me.”

“You don’t gotta rub it in.”

“I’m not,” Law says and means it.

Zoro sucks his teeth. “I’ll talk to him.”

It’s so good to simply look at Luffy again too: the quiet pleasure of seeing his crew comfortable around him; the way he lifts the exhaustion that’s hung over them all for so long simply through his presence. Luffy catches Law staring and his smile gets even bigger. He waves.

It won’t stay like this. Not with Wano two weeks from total chaos and all-out war with Kaidou. But perhaps, for just two more weeks, they could have this: Luffy’s laughter and Zoro’s hand tentatively brushing Law’s own, the three of them together and uncomplicated like they’ve never really had the chance to be.

He doesn’t want to be the one who ruins this. He’s gotten tired lately of letting good things slip through his fingers. But all Law says is, “Okay.”  
  
  
  
  
He doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t.

He’s distracted: by the complex jumble of his thoughts after it was starting to feel like he’d finally put them in order. By the threat of Kaidou, by Kin’emon’s plans, by a day spent packing quickly in preparation for next morning’s departure.

But also: by the stumble to his tent after dinner; the flurry of hands and laughter; his chest pressed to Zoro’s broad back, Luffy’s tongue pressing into Zoro’s mouth. His hands on Zoro’s hips and Luffy’s arms around them both, inescapable. The small moan in the back of Zoro’s throat, the way Luffy rubs his nose first against Zoro’s, then Law’s, and it makes that permanent ice in Law’s chest thaw just a little bit more. He’s not thinking as he bends his head to kiss Zoro’s neck. He’s not thinking when he curls his hand around Zoro’s wrist, trying to pin him down, and Zoro’s suddenly rigid in his arms, breathing out a harsh, “ _Don’t_ , wait—”

Law lets him go at once. He tries to give him more space but the tent’s too small, the bedroll’s too small. He can’t get away from Zoro or escape Luffy’s expression of alarm as he sits up fast.

“Don’t what?” Luffy asks. “Did I bite you or something?”

“It’s fine,” Law says.

That little wrinkle is back between Luffy’s eyebrows. “I wasn’t talking to you, Traf.” He’s looking at Zoro, who isn’t looking at either of them.

“It’s nothing,” Zoro says. “Just thought Traf was gonna do something. Wasn’t ready.”

“What was Traf gonna do?”

“I wasn’t going to do anything,” Law says.

Luffy’s gaze flicks between the two of them, before finally coming to rest again on the scar along Law’s cheek. “What’s wrong?” Luffy asks. His voice has gone small. “What’s with you guys? Is it me?”

“‘Course it’s not you,” Zoro says at once.

“Then how come you guys won’t tell me nothing?”

“It’s — it’s just this thing Traf and me have been doing. It’s not a big deal, and you probably wouldn’t like it that much anyway.”

“So I don’t get to know,” Luffy says, his voice getting smaller still. Genuine panic begins to dawn on Zoro’s face. “It’s just for the two of you?”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“I wasn’t gone that long.” Luffy says, miserable. “I swear. I tried to get back as fast as I could.”

“It’s not you,” Zoro says again, uselessly.

“Sometimes I use the Ope Ope no Mi so I can cut Zoro up,” Law says. He tries to project calm authority, though mostly his whole body feels taut, his back literally against the wall with nowhere to run from the argument he can see approaching, rapid as a storm. “He asked me to do it, so I did.”

“I said I’d fucking tell him, Traf,” Zoro snarls out from behind clenched teeth.

He was trying to help, to get it over and done with fast, like ripping off a bandage. He opens his mouth to explain and what comes out is, “You were taking too long.”

Zoro goes bone white with rage. He shoves himself away from Law.

“How long were you guys not gonna tell me?” Luffy asks them, but his gaze lingers on Zoro. “ _Were_ you gonna tell me?” Zoro doesn’t answer him, which is answer enough. Luffy rolls out of bed. He drapes his yukata loosely around himself and grabs his hat and his sandals. Zoro scrambles to his feet as well, prepared to follow.

“Straw Hat-ya,” Law begins.

“You said you were being nice,” Luffy says, voice shaking with accusation. His hands are in fists and he looks at the floor, at the wall, anywhere but at the two of them. “You promised me, Traf.”

He sweeps the flap of the tent aside and storms out.

They’ve both gone still in his wake. “Fuck,” Zoro grits out, voice tight and thin. He reels around suddenly and kicks at a stack of Law’s books, scattering them everywhere. Zoro starts to kneel down and gather them, then jerks himself upright again. “ _Fuck_ ,” Zoro spits. “Fucking _fuck_ ,” and then he’s gone too.  
  
  
  
  
Law finds himself alone again.

The first thing he collects is himself. He sits very still, his gaze finding and holding a fixed point along the opposite wall, like Cora-san taught him how to do when he was little and still prone to anxiety attacks. He inhales carefully through his nose —  _eight, nine, ten —_ and exhales through his mouth —  _three, two, one — _ until his heart steadies and slows.

The second thing he collects are his thoughts; the third his books from the floor; the fourth his clothes as he gets dressed. He sets his tent carefully back into some approximation of order and by the time he checks his watch, twenty minutes have passed and with them the last of the faint spasms racking his chest. By now Zoro will have disappeared deep into the surrounding forest, where he can hide for a while and pretend not to think or feel.

Law slips from the tent as well. He ignores the worried look he gets from Bepo and the suspicious glares from Nami and Sanji as he makes his way out of camp, past the front gate. He circles the overgrown woods surrounding the ruins of Oden Castle until he finds the tallest tree in the area, a gnarled, old black pine. Its branches reach up into the night, bleeding into the dark sky. Law tilts his head back, considering it. “He wanted to tell you,” Law says at length.

Stubborn silence.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been angry with me before,” he continues. He braced himself and it still feels worse than he could have predicted. He makes himself take another deep breath, counts to ten, waits until he trusts his voice again. “If you’re going to be angry with someone, though, it should be me. Not him.”

“Good, ‘cause I _am_ mad at you,” Luffy says sharply, from out of the dark. Law waits. There’s restless shuffling and then: “You said you were gonna take care of him.”

“I didn’t break my promise.”

Luffy plummets to the ground in a shower of pine needles and broken twigs. He’s half a foot shorter than Law but his fury towers above everyone, everything. He gets right up in Law’s face. “You lied to me. Both of you. He didn’t wanna tell me nothing and you hurt him.”

“I only hurt him because he asked me to.”

“‘Cause he _asked_ you to?” Luffy repeats, incredulous. “Ain’t you supposed to be smart, Traf? Zoro lets himself get hurt all the time. You ain’t supposed to _help_ him do that.”

“You let yourself get hurt all the time too. I imagine you have your reasons as well.” Law regards him coolly. “Your front tooth is chipped, I notice.”

Luffy’s eyes narrow. His lips, curled back in a snarl, push together into a hard, thin line. “That’s different.”

He knows he shouldn’t but Law smiles anyway. Not for the first time it strikes him, how much Luffy and Zoro are two sides of the same battered, rare coin.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Luffy snaps.

“I’m not laughing at you.”

Luffy’s still breathing hard. His hands flex restlessly like he wants to hit something. Law backtracks, tries to reassess. He still doesn’t know much about how Luffy’s mind works but he’s gained some insight into the paths of logic his brain tends to operate along. “It doesn’t matter that he asked me to do it because he trusted me?” Law ventures.

“But—”

“Do you trust him to know what he does and doesn’t want?”

“That’s—‘course I _trust_ him—”

Law makes himself ask: “Do you trust me?”

Luffy looks as startled as if Law slapped him. “’Course I trust you, Traf.”

It should have gotten old by now: the way Luffy can keep on having so much faith in him. It never does.

“But you guys didn’t trust _me_ ,” Luffy says accusingly. “You weren’t gonna tell me. I coulda handled it. I can handle anything!”

“Because you handled this so well?”

Luffy’s shoulders hunch up near his ears.

“He wanted you to know,” Law says. “He was trying to figure out how to tell you.”

“Then why didn’t he just say so?” Luffy demands.

Law thinks about the human brain, the tiny node of the amygdala tucked behind the prefrontal cortex and between layers of matter, where the receptors for pain and pleasure collide and run together. He thinks of Lami’s knee wet and streaked with blood, her face dry and pale. “Maybe he was afraid.”

Luffy snorts. “ _Zoro?_ He’s not afraid of anything.”

“Pain and fear aren't all that different,” Law says quietly. “Everybody can be hurt. Everybody's afraid of something. Or someone."

Luffy looks away first. His lower lip wobbles and he bites down hard on it, even as the remaining fury in his expression crumbles. He makes this tired little noise from behind his teeth and then he’s pressing himself into Law’s arms, his face buried in Law’s shoulder. His hands are cold when he shoves them into the front pocket of Law’s hoodie. “I messed up really bad.”

“You’ll fix it,” Law says, plucking stray pine needles from Luffy’s hair.

“What if I can’t?”

“You can. You didn’t fuck this up. Believe me. I’m a semi-professional fuck-up. I would know.”

Another little noise, muffled and significantly more distressed. “You’re not a fuck-up.”

“You’re sweet.”

Luffy clings tighter. “Say it again, Traf.”

Law smirks. “What, that you’re sweet?” Luffy nods. Law pulls his hands out of his hoodie — he lets Luffy keep his hands tucked inside — and cups Luffy’s face. “You’re sweet,” Law says and kisses his forehead. “You’re sweet,” he says and kisses the bridge of Luffy’s nose because it always makes Luffy laugh and Luffy does indeed giggle a little. “You’re sweet,” Law murmurs against Luffy’s mouth and then kisses him, slow and careful.  
  
  
  
  
It’s half past midnight when Zoro returns to camp. Law knows him by his footsteps: coming down hard on the heel, heavy and precise. Law studies his silhouette through the side of the tent. Zoro lingers outside for a long time.

Luffy mumbles in his sleep.

Zoro doesn’t come inside to sleep but he sits by the entrance. There’s the muted slide of steel. Law doesn’t sleep either but he closes his eyes and listens as Shusui sings.  
  
  
  
  
They make decent headway their first day, despite the trek being slow and cautious. Kiku and Kin’emon know the hidden paths of the forest well. They stop only when the sun begins to disappear behind the trees.

Zoro doesn’t join them for dinner. He volunteers for the first round of patrol with Shachi and the next round after that with Clione. Law sits by the small fire Sanji builds for them and waits up, past nine o’clock, until Zoro and Clione trudge back from the outskirts of camp.

“He’s avoiding us,” Luffy grumbles, gnawing anxiously at a turkey leg.

“Yeah,” Law says, “he does that.”

“I got this,” Luffy says and before Law can fully register what that means, Luffy flings one hand across the length of the camp and seizes the neck of Zoro’s yukata. There’s a loud elastic twang and Zoro comes rocketing toward the both of them, cursing in bewilderment as he does. Luffy drops him at their feet.

“Luffy,” Zoro spits, “what the—? _"_

“I’m sorry,” Luffy blurts out. “About yesterday.”

Zoro looks confused, then awkward, then suspicious. He turns his glare on Law. “’S fine,” he grunts and makes to get up and leave. Luffy’s hand coils itself around his left ankle.

“It’s not fine,” Luffy says pleadingly. “It’s not fine because you’re mad and you’re sad and I don’t like it when you’re mad and sad—”

“I’m not—”

“—and Traf doesn’t like it either.”

“I don’t,” Law says and lets Zoro take that how he will.

“—so I just wanna—” Zoro tries to speak and Luffy whines. “Lemme finish, okay? I don’t care what you do. Whatever you guys wanna do is fine. If it makes you happy, then that’s good and that’s what I want.”

“Okay,” Zoro mutters to his boots.

Luffy’s face screws up in frustration, then smooths just as quickly into bright relief. “I know!” he says. He wraps his fist in Zoro’s yukata again, grabs Law by the wrist, and marches the two of them across camp.

“Luff, what the hell are you doing?” Zoro asks. “What the hell is he doing?” he asks Law when he’s ignored.

“Like I have any idea how his brain works,” Law says wryly; just for a second, a ghost of a smile crosses Zoro’s face.

Luffy hauls them past the cluster of tents — Carrot and Nami and Bepo spare them curious glances — to the edge of camp, to Law’s own tent, He pushes both of them inside and then dives in after them. “Okay,” Luffy says and claps his hands together. “Show me.”

“Show you what?” Zoro asks.

Law’s a step ahead but still: he hesitates, busies himself with lighting the single dull lamp instead.

“Guys? I’m lost.”

“You’re always lost,” Luffy teases, but he’s gentle when his hand untangles from Zoro’s yukata and moves to touch his face; Zoro’s body shifts instinctively, leaning into him. “I wanna see what you guys do. Can I? Please?”

The line of Zoro’s shoulders stiffens. “I don’t think—”

“I wanna see. You like it, right?”

“Luffy,” Law begins cautiously.

“I was super dumb yesterday. Traf says you like it and that it’s fun for you. And I like having fun with Zoro and Traf, so...so can I see? Even if I don’t like it, I wanna be a part of it. And I promise I won’t be weird or laugh or nothing! Promise. So...please?”

Zoro’s gaze darts to Law, darts away, returns to him again. They consider each other “Zoro-ya,” Law hears himself say, “come over here.”

Zoro’s jaw sets but he obeys. Law takes his hat off, tossing it onto the bed and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. Luffy flops to the floor, legs folding under him, watching in avid curiosity.

When he’s within arm’s reach, Zoro thrusts his right hand at Law. “Here. Chop it off real quick and we’ll deal with this later,” he mutters under his breath.

Law takes the hand that Zoro offers, their fingers interlacing. He undoes one of the bandages along Zoro’s wrist. Kiku did a decent job. Zoro will heal without much damage. He unwinds another bandage, peeling it back like dead skin, and then trails the tip of his finger gently from one faint puncture wound to the next. The newly forming scars map the inside of Zoro’s forearm like a minor constellation.

Zoro doesn’t pull away. Law lets his hand wander higher, along his bicep, along the curve of Zoro’s jawline and the light dusting of stubble prickling beneath his fingertips. “You’ll need a shave soon.”

“Maybe your fucking Devil Fruit can actually cut something useful,” Zoro retorts. But Law knows  Zoro’s anger now too, the silence, the bite of Shusui. This isn’t it. This is something else, like another spar, rough and playful: the way they circle and counter and crash together when they finally meet in the middle.

Law’s hand moves higher, sliding into Zoro’s hair. He searches until he finds the ends of the tie binding his topknot. Law yanks gently until the knot gives way and Zoro’s hair spills loose. “Handsome,” Law says, unable to help himself. Zoro can’t look at him. Law tucks the tie away and lets Zoro hide behind the curtain of his hair.

“Just take my damn hand off already.”

“When I’m ready. I like to do things my way.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Zoro says, jerking his head back toward Luffy.

It startles a snort out of Law; after a moment, Zoro grins too. Luffy perks up at the sound of their laughter and Law puts his arm around Zoro’s waist and turns them so that they’re both facing him. “You want it to hurt?” Law murmurs in Zoro’s ear.

“Traf, just…fucking do it.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Law’s hand slips into the folds of Zoro’s yukata, pulling back worn cotton to expose Zoro’s bare shoulder. He sinks his teeth into the slope between collarbone and neck and hears the click in Zoro’s throat as he swallows hard. “It’s okay,” Law says quietly. “It’s just Luffy.”

Zoro trembles against him. “But I don’t want him to—”

“What do _you_ want?”

Zoro hesitates and then gives an almost imperceptible nod. A Room folds around them, an arc of light pressing against the inside of Zoro’s wrist, tearing through flesh and bone. There’s a faint hiss — pain, relief — Zoro’s back arching and Law cradles Zoro’s severed hand in his, their fingers still tangled together.

“Okay,” Zoro manages to say, even though he’s started to tremble even harder. “Now you’ve seen.”

Luffy peers at the stump of Zoro’s arm. He doesn’t look terribly disturbed, only a little curious, a little surprised. He scoots closer and places his hand atop the both of theirs. It’s not bad or awkward, just…acknowledgment.

“Zoro’s so weird,” Luffy says at last, with genuine tenderness.

Beneath Law’s hands, Zoro uncoils a little. “Traf’s the freak.”

“Yeah, but you like it don’t you?” Law says and Zoro’s flush crawls all the way down the back of his shoulders.

Luffy grins. Law sinks to the ground, pulling Zoro down with him. When he beckons, Luffy comes closer, settling himself between their splayed legs. He drags a lazy kiss over Zoro’s mouth, across Law’s cheek. The air in the tent’s hot and wet and the bedroll’s still too small for all of them together, but they’ll make it work, because that’s how things are when he’s with Luffy and Zoro: they’re never quite right, but somehow they keep making it work.

He envelopes them in another Room. For just a moment, it’s as Law pictured: the three of them together, shut away while beyond them the rest of the world rages on. He focuses on Zoro’s legs, bearing down with the Ope Ope no Mi like a saw, slicing through bones and sinew and cutting Zoro just above his knees. Zoro moans, his head falling back on Law’s shoulder, exposing the vulnerable line of his neck again. Luffy bites him hard along the jugular.

They strip him bare: peeling back layers of wool and cotton, Luffy tugging at Zoro’s belt and tossing it carelessly aside. Zoro’s already hard as they work his yukata the rest of the way open, the head of his cock leaking through the thick fabric of his fundoshi. He thrashes in impatience. Law catches his wrist. Luffy pins his thighs, then bites him again on the shoulder. Law pictures blood vessels bursting beneath the pressure of Luffy’s teeth, Zoro’s skin blooming into deep purples and reds, like the scattered, delicate plum blossoms.

Luffy undoes the front of his own yukata, the fabric bunching around his waist. In the dim light, the scar on his own chest looks as raw and red as the day Law cauterized it. He remembers the heavy click and sigh of the respiratory machines and beyond it the insistent throb of the EKG monitor. Even after the devastation of Marineford, even beneath the clutter of tubes and the ragged, gaping wound still thick with blood, even after it should have been broken beyond repair, he could feel Luffy’s heart in his hands: stubborn and still there.

Luffy’s hand on Zoro’s thigh pushes higher. He finds the neat and narrow cut Law left on him and he traces it slowly, back and forth, with the pad of his thumb. “You can do whatever you wanna, you know,” he says softly. “If you wanna get cut up like this. If you wanna bring down another hundred Mingos. If you wanna be strong or if you don’t wanna be strong no more.”

“Luffy,” Zoro whispers.

Luffy’s thumb never falters. His other hand touches Law’s face, his thumb running along the matching scar on Law’s cheek. “The only thing you can’t do is leave.” He looks at Zoro, then at Law. “You can’t leave me.”

“I wouldn’t,” Zoro says, his voice cracking right down the middle. “I wouldn’t.”

Law turns his head, presses his mouth to Luffy’s palm. “I won’t.”

Zoro’s shaking, like he could fall apart all on his own without them. “Please,” he says. “Please.”

“All right, Zoro-ya,” Law murmurs. “All right.”

Luffy’s face tucks into the crook of Zoro’s neck; Law drags open-mouthed kisses down the backs of his shoulders. With oil slick between his legs, with bruises smeared across his lips and skin, they take him, piece by piece.

Zoro grasps at them desperately. He rakes his nails across Law’s wrist, pulls Luffy even closer to him. He holds them the best that he can in what remains of his bent and broken arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much again for your patience while i got this done and for reading! i'm, like...way deep into zolaw and also this ot3, so pls feel free to [come and yell at me](https://twitter.com/nevermordor) about them!


End file.
